


Dudley Dursley and the Bee Hive

by Jmso



Category: Harry Potter-J.K. Rowling
Genre: Dedalus Diggle - Freeform, Diagonalley, Dudley Dursley - Freeform, Gen, Harry Potter - Freeform, Hestia Jones - Freeform, Hogwarts, Other, Petunia Dursley - Freeform, Smeltings, Vernon Dursley - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-05-19 07:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 54
Words: 175,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14869065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jmso/pseuds/Jmso
Summary: This is the story of the Dursley familys perspective of things. After a small chapter of the Order planning for the Dursleys safehouse, it starts off with Petunia Evans´s childhood and what happened to her back then that made her behave so unreasonably strict towards Harry Potter.The main story however, tells us what happens to the Dursley family after they left no 4 Privet Drive to hide from Lord Voldemort. They were leaving with a witch and a wizard and something were bound to happpen between them.The story mainly reveals where the Dursleys went and who they met. How they would endure to be surrounded with magic, and what they did on a day to day basis. It contains a bit of magic, just enough to intrigue some family members and scare another.Some known names from the Potter books are mentioned, together with a couple of new introductions I made up. The story includes the Dursleys dealing with magic, oversized bumble bees, a murder, and a battle amongst other things.





	1. Hestia Overruled

**Author's Note:**

> I am JMS and I am a Norwegian woman whom is a huge Harry Potter fan. 
> 
> I instantly fell head over heels with that world all those years ago, and I simply can not get enough of it. Now I have written a story about the Dursley family that I would like for you to read. I have called it «Dudley Dursley and the Bee Hive.» 
> 
> It has not been my intention to justify anything that the Dursleys had done towards young Harry Potter, by writing this story. I only wanted to know what had happened to begin with to make them all behave the way they all did.
> 
> I have used Squibs and House Elves because the Squibs are the ones whom are in between Wizards and Muggles, and a House Elf would not harm a human. Thus they would not be such a big threat to the Dursleys. I also wanted the Squibs and the House Elves to kind of shine a little and perhaps show the magical community that they could have an improtant role in that world too. In addittion I wanted them to be introduced to the Dursleys to simply make a difference to their lives.
> 
> The main story runs alongside the last Harry Potter book, so I needed to tie in some of the events that Harry went through. I found it plausible that Hestia and Dedalus would at least be informed with some of the things that happened to him since they were members of the Order of the Phoenix. In addition I have altered some minor details from Rowlings last book. She wrote that they dissapparated away from Surrey, I have given them a port key instead.
> 
> Seeing as Norwegian is my mother-tounge, and this is the first story I have ever written, I understand that the language probably is not very good. However my hope is that you will find my English adequat enough to read. In addition I hope you simply will enjoy my story. I am not very good at writing dialogues, so I am afraid I have dodged them alltogether. Nevertheless I believe you will understand what they say to eachother without it.
> 
> Enjoy.

 «MUGGLES?!» Hestia shouted! No way she was going to spend more than a week together with those muggles!! She did not know anything about how to act around them she said. The way Mad-Eye Moody had talked about the Dursleys beforehand they seemed to be the worst sort of muggles existing!

Mad-Eye had announced to the whole room that he wanted her, Hestia Jones, to be one of the guardians of the Dursley family that morning. That was not Hestias intention at all when she had showed up for the meeting that day! She had reconed that there were plenty of other people from the Order who would have been only too happy to be volunteering for the task. She had much rather be in the guard that was going to take Harry Potter away from his muggle home forever.

Nevertheless, it now dawned upon her that this had been the old Aurors plan all along. Harry Potters guard was already arranged and she would not get information on anything important regarding it. Now Mad-Eye had announced her name and suddenly the spotlight were on her. The two of them ended up having a rather big row about it in front of everybody, Hestia downright refused to do it. However, Moodys mind was absolutely set about it. Then Kingsley Shacklebolt rose from his chair and calmly announced with his deep voice that he agreed with Mad-Eye. He told her that she was the best-qualified witch for the job and they had rather hoped she would not oppose to it.

Suddenly it seemed she did not have a choise in the matter. Now she had to spend the next two full weeks reading up on Muggle Studies instead of looking forward to be seeing Harry Potter off together with the others.

Doris Crockford tried to come to her rescue when she enthusiastically volenteered for the job in replacement of Hestia. To her it was as if the whole Dursley family was the long lost twin of Harry Potter and she simply wanted to adopt them all. However, Doris was outvoted by Mad-Eye. He told her she could not bring any of her dozen odd cats along to the safe house, and after a short arguement with Mad-Eye about why not, she was defeated. Poor Doris was devastated. So was Hestia.

Hestia looked around the room, there really was no one else of the women who would be in a position to go undercover with the Dursley family. They all had families to take care of, and she was the only one there whom was unmarried and without children. Moodys mind was determined by the fact that it should be a man and a woman who would be guarding the Dursleys.

Hestia finally resigned, at least she had been given an important task regarding Harrys family, so something kind of exciting was going to happen. Besides, she would probably be able to wish Harry Potter good luck at his muggle house in person before they left. Hestia sighed and decided she would give it her best, after all they were the only living relatives of Harrys. Perhaps they were not as bad as Moody had said after all.

She decided she had to change her entire mindset about it to be able to manage her job. Allthough she did not have much experience regarding muggles, she knew many half-bloods though and both them and their families were allright enough.

Dedalus Diggle on the other hand had voulenteered for the job emmediately when Mad-Eye had announced that they needed two people to gurad the Dursley family into a safe house. He certainly wanted to spend some time with Harry Potters muggle relatives and get to know them better. Everybody knew that he loved muggles, almost as much as Arthur Weasley. They all agreed to Dedalus beeing one of the two at once, assuming he would do very well indeed with them.

Moody was now rather happy that this was finally settled and agreed upon. Then they had to decide where in the world they could find a place that would function as a safehouse for them. Were they to go in hiding in a Muggle house somewhere? On the other hand, could they possibly bring the Dursleys into the Magical community and manage to keep them safe there?

Both Hestia and Dedalus agreed that it would certainly be the easiest way for the both of them to be in the magical community. Then they could possibly have other witches and wizards in close proximity to help them out if they needed them. Then again, they would have to be other people from the Order, and they lived so scattered around the country they did not know how that would ever be possible. Besides Moody did not want to waste more people from the Order on theese muggles, even though they were the only living relatives of Harry Potter.

Perhaps they could arrange for the Burrow to be extended? However, Kingsley announced that not to be a possibility either. Arthur Weaslys family was already the wizarding family closest watched by both the Dark side and the Ministry. It would be far too dangerous to keep them there. It had to be somewhere very different. Then Mad-Eye Moody announced that he was uttrely reluctant to keep them in the magical community at all. He told them that Mr Dursley was such a bigoted man when it came to wizards he probably would not last one single day if he were to be mingeling with too many wizards at one time! They were supposed to keep them alive weren’t they?! Kingsley Shackebolt agreed with him and Hestia and Dedalus were overruled. It had to be a Mugglehouse of sorts then.

Mad-Eye started to plan for a house somewhere far away in the north of Norway where he figured nobody from even the Dark side would even think to look, when Dedalus Diggle suddenly came up with a much better plan! Thank goodness, Hestia thought! No way was she gonig to survive the cold weather far up in the north of Norway, in addition to spending her time with three allegedly stubborn and difficult muggles.

Dedalus had suddenly remembered his good friend Arabrax Bricklehurst. He had the perfect spot he told them all. He was so utterly pleased with himself for thinking of him, he jumped up and down on his chair and was so overly joyed about it Hestia hardly could keep her countenaince. He declaired to them it would be all well indeed and promised them he would manage everything regarding the planning of their stay at the safehouse himself. The house was not situated directly in the wizarding community, he said, however it was a witch’s house. He was convinced that mr Dursley would not object to the house nor its inhabitants. He also promised Hestia the weather would not be of any consequense to her at all. He simply needed to contact the man himself and ask if it would be all right with him if he sheltered Harry Potters relatives. Something he was almost convinced was not going to be an issue at all.


	2. Petunia Evans

When Petunia was a little girl, she grew up in a small family of four people, consisting of a mother and a father, herself and her little sister Lily. Their family had recently moved to a place in England called Cokeworth in The Midlands.

  
Their mother was a middleclass woman whom had married Mr Evans, a working class man, out of love. In addition to beeing in love with him, she had also done it out of spite to her family, whom she resented. She felt that they were bigoted in a way that she did not like to assosiate herself with. Just because a man was poor, he was not necessarily a bad person!

Her husband was tall, he had a rather long neck and his teethes were a little crooked. His hair were auburn, and he had many freckles on his nose. Perhaps he was not a very handsome man, but his charm and kindness recommended him. This little family had just moved so that he could get a job at one of the factories there, where they melted steel. He did not have any good education to favour him, so he accepted the work he was handed and was satisfied that he was able to provide for his family reasonably well by it.  
  
Petunias idea of her parents’s relationship was that her mother must have been deeply in love with their father, since he came from a working class family. Petunia secretly longed for her mothers middleclass family and tried to pretend to herself that the Evans family really belong in the middleclass too. Her mother however never even spoke about them and soon enough Petunias grandparents had died without the girls ever being introduced to any of them. Petunia tried to hide it, but she also was a little ashamed of her father being poor and working at a factory, feeling he somehow should have perfected himself to his beautiful wife.  
  
Nevertheless, it did not matter to Mr Evans if he were totally exhausted when he came home late in the evenings from a day of hard labour. He always took some time to spend with his two little darling daughters. He loved them both dearly and would give them the world if he had the chance. He worked really hard to keep them fed and with a decent home to live in. Harder really than he even wanted to tell his lovley wife.

  
Still, Petunia favoured her mother. She pitied her father and did not give him as much affection as he probably deserved. Petunia only knew her life would have been ever so much different if her mother had simply married a rich man. Petunia were sure she must have had suiters everywhere in her youth. She thought her mother the most beautiful person in the world. She was blonde with huge curls floating around her neck, had a perfect nose and almond shaped eyes. She had a beautiful smile and pearly-white teeths. However, her smile were a rare thing to behold. It usually was Petunias father who managed to lure her mother into a smile.  
  
Petunia had noticed early on that it was her little sister Lily, who were the one who had inherited their mothers pretty eyes and good looks. Even though Lily were also the one who had inherited their fathers auburn hair, she somehow never was bullied about it. Lily carried it with pride and did not seem to mind her hair colour at all.

From her mother Petunia had only inherited her hair colour and nose. Otherwise she resembled her father quite too much she thought. She too had some crocked teethes just like her father did, she had also inherited his long neck. He used to tell her she had a long and elegant neck, he used to say it was Ladylike. However, she resented his words. If the praise did not come from her mother, it did not count. However, her mother rarely gave any compliments at all. Still, from when she was quite young Petunia copied her mothers every move to make herself feel like she looked a lot more like her than she really did.  
  
Some boys had once called Petunia horse face, and those harsh remarks would probably stay with her for the rest of her life. She could not help the way she looked, and people in general were downright mean she thought. Therefore, she kept much to herself during her schooldays, only letting one or two girls becoming somewhat close, however she  never did feel like confiding in them too much.

  
When she got home from school in the afternoons Petunia usually had to look after her sister so that she did not get dirty and that she behaved properly. Petunia was only a couple of years older than Lily, however, she always felt like an adult when she was with her because Lily always got herself into all sorts of trouble. Her sister had the ability to fall down a whole staircase without getting hurt at all. She would only be lying on her belly laughing hard about it and wanting to do it all over again. If that had been Petunia, she would have had to be sent to the hospital or something. Lily always managed to get her clothes dirty or torn, and Petunia always ended up getting the blame for it.

  
Petunia was the one given the most responsibility out of the two girls, because she was the oldest. When she was very young, Petunia sometimes used to envy Lily for getting away with duties and chores around the house. She could even bully her little sister for being such a little baby because of it. Except Lily did not mind any of that at all, to Petunias great annoyance.  
  
However, as Petunia liked to copy her mother, she soon found that she too liked to have a clean and tidy house just like Mrs Evans did, and often as not she started to offer to help her clean out the kitchen. Mostly so that her mother could see that she was rather good at it. She started noticing that it felt soothing to see how neat a room became after she had finished with it. Petunia constantly craved recognition from her mother, and did what she could to get it by helping her out. Thus, she actually became quite a good cook at a rather young age, however Petunia always felt like her mother rarely gave her any compliments for being clever with any of it at all. Her father on the other hand praised her often enough, though his words were simply not as appreciated with her as her mothers would have been.  
  
Mrs Evans had noticed that her oldest daughter was so much alike her own bigoted family, and she could not help but resent it a little. She noticed that Petunia did not quite appreciate her own father because he happened to come from a poor family. She also thought that Petunia rather tried too hard to be liked by her to quite manage to appreciate her oldest daughters good intentions. Her baby girl Lily however, resembled her husband, with his good nature and love for everything around her. This made Mrs Evans secretly love her baby girl the best out of the two children.  
  
Lily did not mind a little dirt and untidiness. Petunia often thought how strange it was that the two of them were siblings at all, being so different in absolutely everything. Lily loved her father to no end. She liked to sing for him, she picked him flowers, gave him drawings and showed him all other kind of strange things she could find outside. Lily was a curious child, and she was eager to learn anything her father could teach her. The two of them liked to study all sorts of things, like herbs, flowers, trees and fish. Actually, bugs or worms happend to be Lilys favourites. Petunia on the other hand hated dirt, and bugs or all other sorts of animals. She liked to sew and draw a little, but when she found that Lily was better than she was at drawing, she gave that up all together.  
  
Petunia had always known that Lily were different from the rest of the Evans family in another more peculiar way. Petunia remembered baby Lily lying in her cot making stars popping up all around her. All of them had used to laugh at that. However, as Lily grew older she started doing more and more funny things. Like suddenly making a beetle fly into her open hand, or even make a bird fly straight into peoples head if they had annoyed or bullied any of them.

Usually it was Petunia who were bullied and Lily whom always helped avenge her. Even though Lily was younger than she was, Petunia felt that Lily was always treated with more respect than herself by all the other kids. Petunia did not understand why, nor know how to change it. She did not like it much, still she was glad Lily usually were there to help her if she was bullied. The two girls used to have a little fun with it at first when Lily started school, making the school bag of a boy who had teased Petunia something awful, rip at the bottom and all of his books fell out. All these funny things that Lily did were their own little secret.  
  
Petunia had always desperately wanted to know how Lily did it, and secretly tried to copy her. However, she simply could not do it. It was incredible frustrating for Petunia not to manage whatever it was Lily did. It all looked so easy, and it did not help matters that Lily usually told her it really was easy. She told her to simply concentrate on what she wanted to do and then just do it.

Sometimes Petunia even locked herself inside the kitchen pantry and tried to make the cans fly over to her open hand. Once, a can actually fell down and hit her hard on the head, and Petunia were convinced it was her own doing. Except when she were going to show it to Lily, she simply could not copy what she had done earlier. Petunia ended up becoming rather frustrated because of it, wishing desperately she had the same abilities too.  
  
As the years passed by, Petunia really started to get annoyed with it all because there were always some other thing Lily could do that she simply couldn´t. She even asked her parents to make her stop doing it. Because she was becoming afraid Lily would accidentally do it in front of somebody she knew, and that people would look at the whole Evans family as freaks because of it. Except instead, her parents encouraged Lily to keep it up, to Petunias great annoyance. Their parents both found it simply exiting that Lily had special gifts. This made Petunia feel even more like they favoured  her sister over her. There were nothing special about Petunia at all. She was a good girl, she thought, but she simply couldn´t help that she were unable to do whatever it was that Lily could do. Therefore, she suffered in silence, becoming steadily more resentful towards her and all of the extraordinary things she could do.

As they were growing into teenagers and started to form their own opinions of the world the two of them had more frequent falling outs and their paths seemed to slip further and further away. They simply saw the world from two different point of views. Lily saw it as a beautiful and spectacular place to live. While Petunia often as not found the world cold and scornful. Lily were more of a forgiving nature than her sister. So as Lily forgave and forgot, Petunias resentment grew bigger still, because of that too.  
  
The summer holiday of the year Lily had turned eleven she met with a boy called Severus Snape. He was able to do the things Lily could do too, only he could do it even better. He was the one to tell her she was a Witch and that she was going to be able to attend a rather special school to develope her abilities. Petunia contradicted him because she simply did not want him to be true. She had been relying on the fact that Lily was going to attend her own secondary school that September. She had been looking forward to it so much that when Lily actually received her letter from that other school Severus had been talking about, she had rather a huge melt down. She simply could not believe it.

Lily found her that night in a puddle and comforted her as best as she could. She then suggested that Petunia should write to Lilys school and ask if she could be accepted there as well as her. Petunia was hesitant to it at first, but the idea stuck with her and she finally decided she could at least give it a go. It took her quite a while to write the letter to this strangely named school of Lilys, because she was uncertain of exactly what she was going to write. By the time she had finished it however, that Severus boy had already taken Lily along to buy her schoolbooks and all other kind of equipment she acquired for school. In addition to the things she needed for the education, Lily had bought herself an owl for correspondence. This owl was used the first time for sending Petunias letter to Hogwarts, Lilys new school. 

The idea to buy an owl had been Severus, so that Lily could keep in touch with her parents during the school year. Lily had been a little hesitant to start a school far away from her family and in some sort of a hidden world even. However, his idea to make her able to contact her family whenever she wanted to, had convinced her to accept it.  
The little notion of consideration from young Severus Snape their parents appreciated very well indeed, and even invited him to dine with them one Sunday. Severus was quite reluctant to it at first because his idea of parents in general, were that they yelled at you for every little thing you did. However, he consented to the invitation after a lot of persuasion from Lily. Petunia on the other hand, did not like the gesture very much at all. Why on earth would they invite that impertinent boy into their house she could never understand! Thus, she said nothing to him during the whole dinner, nor did he to her, which in return actually vexed her a lot more than she could comprehend. Since she had intended to make him suffer, not the other way around.  
  
Petunia actually did get a letter in return from Lily’s school the very next day she had sent it. The headmaster replied to her that he was ever so sorry but she was not a magical person, and therefore he could simply not accept her into his school. He had written the letter with a nice slanting handwriting, signing it with a very strange name indeed; Professor Albus Dumbledore. Although he had been ever so polite towards her, it nevertheless was a turndown. Petunia felt she turned a little embarrassed with it all by then. How ever could she have stooped that low, she thought. Even though, true to herself, she desperately wanted to go there too. Oh well, now she at least had given it a go, she thought. Besides, nobody but Lily, herself, and that Dumbledore person, would ever know about the letter.  
  
Alas, all of that hopeful secrecy ended in disaster for Petunia. That horrible Severus boy was ever so nosy and somehow had managed to retrieve her letter and read it. Not believing that anybody from Hogwarts would ever write to a dirty muggle like herself, as he so gently put it. Petunias rage against him for mocking her about it was rather severe. It also gave birth to a new resentment towards her sister. Lily had not defended her in this, as she usually had done through the years. Even though it had all been her idea to write to the school in the first place. Petunia burned the letter in devastated fury that evening. She swore to herself she was going to make her own way in the world from then on, not relying on her sister anymore. The more she thought of Lily and Severus the more she resented them and she started to call the two of them freaks for the things they could do that she was unable to.  
  
After Lily started her education at Hogwarts, Petunia grew even more bitter against Lily and all of her magic. Especially when she showed up at Christmas and summer holidays with full marks and all sort of weird things poking out of her pockets. Besides, that horrible owl Lily had bought herself before she started school made things even worse. Especially since Petunia had always hated animals and were terrified of birds in general. They simply did not belong inside of a house! It was utterly unsanitary! In addition, it reminded her of that shameful letter she herself had sent to that freak school of Lilys, and Petunia desperately wanted to forget all about that.

Petunia withdrew herself more and more from her sister, gradually drifting apart from her. Seeing as she was this jealous of Lily and her happiness with her new and secret world, Petunia swore to herself that she was never going to have anything to do with people who knew any magic at all. She was going to make her own way in the world. She wanted to find her pride in being quite an ordinary person, and started to tell herself that she was better than Lily in every way, to outweigh her parents neglect of her own self-esteem. She knew deep inside that she deserved more praise and attention than her mother had given her during her childhood, therefore she began complimenting herself for every little thing that she accieved in life. She called it «self-love» and prided herself in beeing elegantly dressed and a great cook. She simply knew she would become every mans dream of a housewife one day.


	3. Love and Marriage

Lily had always been a bookish girl and was quite clever at school, to her sisters great annoyance. Petunia on the other hand had always struggled her way through the entire educational system. Nobody seemed to think it mattered that she did not understand the teachers, nobody had ever taken any time to explain things properly to her, she felt. Therefore, she quite often felt stupid and left out from the class and thus detached from her classmates. Nevertheless, Petunia new she needed to secure herself some sort of a job. Therefore, she decided to leave her parents house as soon as she got the opportunity . Finally, she found the courage to move to London in persuit of a typing course. This again led to a clergical job at an office called Grunnings where they sold drilles. 

At this office, she met with a very smart junior executive by the name of Vernon Dursley. She fell head over heels for this completely ordinary man. His normal ways and common set of living appealed to her so deeply she soon could not praise him highly enough to her mother. With him, she could be her own ordinary self. Besides, he was a middle class man, so she went ahead and told him a little lie that she was from a middleclass family too. She did take care never to introduce any of the Evans family to him, in fear of them giving her away that she actually belonged to the working class. The two of them ended up going on quite a few ordinary dates, and Petunia became more and more satisfied with him. He represented everything a true gentleman should, he praised normality, punctuality and a life like any other ordinary person would have wanted. He talked of his prospects of taking over the business they both worked for in the future and that he would very much like to buy a house some were in Surry, settle down there and create a family. He did not say directly, but she understood that a stay-at-home wife, who liked to cook was regarded as a key ingredient to his happiness. All of this suited Petunia just perfectly. She decided she wanted to do anything she could, to secure this man to become her husband.

Unfortunately for Petunia, her sister Lily happened to pop by her one evening when Petunia and Vernon had been on a very romantic date indeed at his mothers house. Petunia was kissing him goodnight by the front door as Lily turned the corner and almost walked straight into them. Petunia was mortified of course, however Vernon saved the situation by introducing himself to her as the perfect gentleman he always was. Lily was her usual self and was pleasant enough with him. She happily congratulated Petunia with her boyfriend. Privately Petunia had wanted to keep him a total secret from her sister, and thus, all to herself. Petunia were utterly sick of always being outshined by her beautiful sister. She had decided she wanted none of that anymore. Luckily, Petunia thought, she had overheard Vernon talk to a colleague that he did not like ginger haired women very much at all, so she was sure she would not have any competition from Lily on that score.

As it happened, on this very lovely evening Vernon had asked Petunia to marry him, and of course Lily noticed the engagement ring on her finger. Alas, since Vernon did not know anything about her and her "abnormality" he invited her to the wedding right there and then, an invitation Lily happily accepted at once.

Vernon Dursley had never heard his darling Petunia Evans even mention that she had a sister. However, on this evening he was so immensely satisfied to have received her consent to be his wife, that he was inclined to like everybody in the world. Bringing Petunia around to his mothers house and proposing to her in her sitting room had been his mothers idea. Even though he was all in nerves, he was actually almost certain she would accept him. To his great pleasure Petunia had happily consented to the engagement without any hesitation at all.

Only a couple of days after the encounter with Petunias sister did it occur to Vernon that possibly he had been a little tactless towards his future wife that evening. Perhaps Petunia did not like her sister very much and did not want her to come to the wedding for some reason or other. It was almost as if he had sensed something like that from her at the time. Then again, he could not imagine why on earth that would be. He himself had a sister of his own and they had a perfectly good relationship. He therefore had quite some difficulties imagining why ever anybody else would have a different relationship with a sibling than he himself had. Besides, he was sure Petunia would have told him if she really had had anything against the invitation, therefore he suppressed these thoughts and went on with his business as usual.

Petunia on the other hand, did not know how on earth she would ever manage to get out of this tricky situation. She certainly did not want Lily at her wedding, and now she was already invited. Petunia had always dodged all sorts of conflicts to the best of her abilities, however she had rarely ended up being true to herself as she did so. Now she had landed herself into a situation she did not like, and she simply did not know how to manoeuvre herself out of it. She certainly did not want to tell her lovely fiancé about her trouble, she would rather suffer in silence. Since she had always been a very private person, she felt that any issues or difficulties she had towards her family would be her own to carry.

The night Vernon had met with Petunias sister, Lily also had suggested that the pair of them met with her own boyfriend, and perhaps she could bring him to their wedding with her? Vernon had been taking charge of the whole situation and consented to every idea this sister of his wonderful fiancé presented to him. He found Lily a merry little woman however with not much dress-resemblance to his own elegant and fine Petunia. However, she seemed to be immensely joyful to see the two of them so happily engaged, and since Vernon was so inclined to like everybody in the world that particular evening he agreed to it on behalf of the two of them. Lily even suggested to Vernon that all four of them should meet up and have a nice dinner one evening soon. Vernon thought it a splendid idea and took it upon himself to find a location for it.

Petunias heart had dropped into her big toe after the meeting with Lily. She had been so happy to have secured her future with Vernon without any interference or needing to introduce him to her family at all, and now she had to go on a double date with her sister and her boyfriend. She dreaded the meeting with them for another reason too. She were convinced that her boyfriend would probably be magical like Lily and thus, just as abnormal. In addition, the only other person she knew to be magical was that horrible Severus Snape person from back in the days when they were kids. She only prayed it would not be him she brought along. She was sure the night would end in disaster for sure if he was her date.

In the end, Petunia decided she would simply have to tell Vernon all about Lily being a witch, and that she thought of her sister as nothing more than a freak. She also told him that Lilys boyfriend would most likely be just as weird as her, and she hoped her darling fiancé would not be too shocked by them.

Vernon were indeed shocked about theese news. Nor was he quite sure how to consume to any of this information. Fortunately, he was far too much in love with Petunia to bother with it too much at the time. He told her it would all be fine and vowed he would never hold any of her strange family relations against her after they had been married. Vernon had never been blessed with much imagination, and had great difficulties understanding how on earth any of this magical stuff possibly could exist. Not really believing her, he waved the thought of it away like a mosquito. Thinking that she probably was just a little ashamed of her family. Her sister looked like a working-class girl with the clothes she was wearing, and perhaps this was something his dear Petunia wanted to hide from him.

However, she had also told him some mambo-jambo story that witches and wizards lived in some sort of a hidden world, and that they were not allowed to use magic in front of normal people. He actually thought his lovely fiance a little odd for even telling him such a thing in the first place. Vernon had only seen magic appear as entertainment on TV himself, where some guy dressed up in a black-tie-suit and wearing a black and red cloak, saying some abracadabra words with a stick and fishing a white rabbit out of a top hat. Therefore, this was what he had in mind when he even bothered to offer Petunias story any thought at all. That and possibly a circus tent.

Petunia figured out that she would just have to give Lily some strict instructions on how to behave around normal people, and simply hope for the best. Because she was terrified that it would be a scandal to somebody as proper as Vernon if she dropped the meeting with her sister and her boyfriend all together, or indeed if she uninvited her from the wedding. Since she was not very good at handling conflicts of any kind and dodged them at all costs, and she simply felt she had to go through with the ideas Vernon and Lily had come up with. Petunia made a note to herself that she would take care not to introduce Lily and her boyfriend to anyone important at her wedding, and certainly not to Vernons sister Marjorie. She seemed like she was quite rigid about rules regarding what was right and proper, as one really ought to be in Petunias mind.

The evening for meeting with Lily and her boyfriend finally arrived. It took place at a rather smart restaurant Vernon had picked out. It was one of the few restaurants left in London who still served proper English food he claimed. Lilys boyfriend was called James Potter, and Petunia was quite satisfied that at least it was not that impertinent guy Severus Snape, and she crossed her fingers that this one somehow had some proper decorum. However, he appeared to be long and lanky with round spectacles and a rather bushy jet-black hair. In a way, he had a windswept look about him that made him look quite untidy Petunia noticed. She had hoped he would have taken it upon himself to look a little more groomed for their meeting at least. However, her sister seemed to not to notice it or be bothered with anything of that kind at all. Petunia felt she should have known this about her sister on beforehand and she probably been given her some dress instructions. Now however, she felt a little disappointed with Lily because she had not thought it herself to be dressing themselves up properly for their meeting. Vernon did not say anything about it, allthough Petunia sensed his annoyance by this mans mere appearance. Towards Petunia though, Vernon always was the perfect gentleman.

The dinner started out pleasantly enough, the two sisters seemed to chat somewhat merrily together, on their own boyfriends arm. However, after a while Lily and James confided in the two of them that they were rather anxious with some bad people called Death Eaters, whose leader wanted to take over the world somehow. They also told them about how dangerous this man was. They told them that the two of them had joined an order to bring him and his followers down and hoped they would manage it in the end. Vernon did not listen too carefully to them though. He was busy congratulating himself with his lovely fiancé and how elegant she looked that very evening. Especially compared to her sister and that scruffy boyfriend of hers. He truly sensed that evening that the Evans family was not quite the Middleclass family Petunia had portrayed to him. However, he decided he was going to let that pass since she herself was such a lovely woman.

As the evening progressed Vernon wanted to impress James with the new car he was driving. Telling him how fast it could go and that he had just installed a leather cover on the steering wheel, which was the huge fashion in London back in those days. James responded to that by describing his own broomstick, a Sweeper12. It had all the right angles on the twigs and that was what made it superfast compared to all other brooms. Vernon figured that James must be living on unemployment fee or something, talking about broomsticks! However, he did not press the matter, because he did not want to mortify his dear Petunia in any way. Nevertheless, he made a mental note to himself not to bother James with splitting the bill after dinner, as he initially most decidedly had intended to do. Except just then, as if James had read his mind, he started boasting about his family’s large fortune and all of their Galleons and Knots. He told them they were piled up in a vault in Gringotts back in London.

However Vernon, being quite familiar with all the banks in the nation, had certainly never heard about a bank called Gringotts. By that time Vernon were no longer sure he were being had on or not, so he responded to James and his bragging in resentment. Besides, Vernon clearly had heard that oddball call his money Galleons, and that definately was not a British currency. James tried his best to calm Vernon down and assured that he was not joking about it. Lily as well claimed that it was all true. However, Vernon simply did not believe in them, and the evening ended with him and Petunia storming out of the restaurant, landing the pair of them with the entire restaurant-bill after all.

Petunia was utterly mortified by her sister and her boyfriend for their behaviour towards her fiancé. She kept apologising to him all the way home, sobbing and whimpering. However, Vernon had calmed down a little as soon he got inside of his car. He thought to himself that James probably had only been embarrassed that he did not have any money and tried to serve him a lie that he indeed did have lots of it. Vernon decided he would let the incident pass by just then. Satisfied that he possibly had taught this Potter person a lesson at least, landing him with the entire restaurant-bill. Although he did not look forward to meeting any of them again at their wedding. He certainly made a note to himself that he would try to stay away from the pair of them as best as he could regretting that he had even met them in the first place.

When Petunia started planning for her wedding, she hated the idea of having Lily as a bridesmaid, because she knew Lily would simply outshine her once again, as she had always done during her life. Instead, she decided that Marjory Dursley, Vernons rather large sized and not at all pretty sister were going to be perfect as her bridesmaid. Lilys heart would be broken over it she knew for sure, but there was nothing for it, Petunia thought. This way she were to secure every eye on herself walking down the aisle, and nobody would even spare a single glance at the bridesmaid. For the first time in her life, it would all be about her and her wonderful normal darling husband to be.

Unfortunately, none of her parents were able to be attending the wedding. Her father had been in a rather horrible accident at work and had broken his back quite badly only three weeks before her wedding. He had become paralysed from the waist down, and was totally in need of care around the clock. Her mother was the one taking care of him, and as they were not inclined to pay for a nurse for one weekend, her mother could not see herself fit to attend the wedding either. Petunia were quite upset that her mother could not come at least, after all Petunia really only wanted her to be there, not so much her father, and certainly not her sister Lily.

The wedding day arrived and everything turned out perfectly for Petunia. Lily arrived a little late and she and her boyfriend placed themselves at the very back of the church, trying not to disturb the ceremony. Petunia were glad they came late, and had rather hoped they would not show up at all. Well, nothing would be allowed to ruin her special day. She was happy all the way to the reception when Lily came up to her to congratulate them. Petunia whispered strictly to her to behave themselves this time, and Lily promised in earnest that they would.

Vernon kept as far away from James and Lily as he possibly could at the reception. However later in the evening, after all the nice speeches his friends and colleagues had served him, and he himself had been drinking a couple of glasses of wine, he told Petunia he would downright refuse to talk to James. Still, Vernon told some of his old schoolmates that James were some kind of an amateur magician. They were standing together in a knot talking not too quiet, sniggering and glancing mockingly over to where James and Petunias sister were sitting.

James had heard all of their snide comments and were fuming. However, he managed to keep his resentment to himself simply because his beautiful girlfriend had told him to control his temper and he was certainly not going to perform any kind of magic there. They were after all amongst muggles. In addition, he would be in deep trouble with the ministry if he did so. He knew they simply needed to blend in with these people somehow for that single evening.   
Nevertheless, as the hours passed and they all became steadily more into their glasses, Vernon kept on laughing out loud and staring over at where James and Lily was sitting. James felt it as if he was insulting Vernon by simply being there and Vernon were trying to make him feel bad about himself and his appearance. James also resented the way Lily’s sister behaved towards them. She did not introduce the two of them to anybody at all and it made Lily ever so sad he could tell. She did not complain though, she never did. However, he had figured out how their relationship was functioning by now. Lily’s sister had always been jealous that she could not do magic herself as Lily could. Now it seemed to him as tough this was Petunias way of taking her revenge on Lily somehow, being insolent to them both at her wedding.

The one thing James resented apart from dark wizards, were Muggles who thought they were better than him, and this Vernon character certainly was a little to smug about himself for his taste. James too had been drinking rather heavily during dinner and had done whatever he could to endure all those dull speeches that had been held by those incredible boring muggles he was surrounded by. Finally, right after Vernon quite clearly had found something else funny to say about him, James could not help himself anymore and lost his temper. Rather unsteadily, he got up off his seat, ignoring Lilys pleading, and transformed himself into his favourite animal and cantered around the dancefloor to everybody’s astonishment and fear. Suddenly the whole party were in uproar, tables and chairs was upturned all around them, all the wedding guests were panicking, screaming and fainting all over the place.

Vernon saw this monster approach him and screamed from the top of his lungs, as he never had done before in his entire life. James the stag cornered him with his antlers and nugded his shoulder as he blew him a «Buff» into his face. That was simply too much for Vernon to handle and he fainted onto the floor. Vernons rather oversized sister then came swinging at James the Stag with her purse until he decided he had had enough fun and returned to humanity.   
His girlfriend approached him with a stern look upon her face and emmediately started to restore the party to normality.

Petunia could not stop screaming herself. However eventually she came to her senses enough to run over to the bar to fetch a glass of water to revive her husband.  
Everything had happened so fast that Petunia did not quite see nor understand what had been going on. James kept apologising to his girlfriend and to Petunia for losing his temper. Lily ignored him and set all their guests right with one swift swing of her wand. Then she put the furnitures and everything else right so that it looked exactly like it had done only minutes earlier. With another flick of her wand, she told Petunia she had given the guests a memory charm so that they would not remember anything that had happened between James and Vernon at all. Lily pleaded and excused James´s behaviour in tears to Petunia but to no avail. Petunias had become so upset with them by then that she shouted to her sister in fury and she banished the two of them from her wedding at once.

None of the wedding guests actually did seem to remember anything that had happened. Only Petunia and Vernon were left to know exactly what had really had been going on there that evening. Right after Lily and James had left however, all of their guests seemed to have become tired somehow and started to excuse themselves, wanting to leave the party. This actually suited the newlyweds quite nicely at the moment as the two of them needed some time to themselves.

When all their guests had left, Petunia were sitting next to her husband sobbing into his handkerchief telling him that Lily somehow had managed to ruin her special day after all. She also revealed to him that this was the reason why she had not told him about her sister and that she really did not want her at her wedding at all. Vernon then vaguely remembered that he actually had been the one to invite them to the wedding the night of his engagement to Petunia, and was now feeling a little guilty about it all.

Vernon privately cursed the two of them, and especially that Potter brat for scaring him witless at his own wedding. Right in front of his friends and colleagues! Petunias sister had told him that she had given their guests a memory charm, and had reassured them that nobody would remember anything other than themselves. However, Vernon did not believe in that mumbo-jumbo, so he was quite apprehensive about meeting all of his friends and collegues again. He decided he needed to test them somehow to see if they remembered anything, and he started with his own sister Marjorie. He almost downright asked her if she remembered that large animal that had been there, but she simply laughed him off and asked him if he had had too many glasses that day, and if he perhaps had become delusional in his married state. Vernon relaxed a little bit after that, and he and his new wife went to Majorca for a little honeymoon.

Vernon were not likely to forgive James Potter for what had happened at their wedding. Not just because that horrid man had actually done magic and scared himself witless at his own wedding, but because of the insolence behind it. He certainly did not have proper decorum in any way. Vernon felt he had managed to establish all of that together with his old Smelting friends. James had worn an incredible old-fashioned suit with frills and a blonde blouse it seemed. Vernon had found him so utterly ridiculously looking that he hardly had managed to refrain himself from downright laugh out loudly at him. He reflected about it later and wondered if that perhaps had triggered the whole incident. However, he dismissed his thought and figured that James probably did not even need an excuse to do magic in front of normal people, because he probably was just that kind of a person.

The two newlywed Dursleys decided they would not have anything to do with the two of them again if they could avoid it. Only Petunia thought to herself she would certainly write a letter to her dear mother and tell her about what her sister and her boyfriend had done to them at her wedding. She could only imagine with joy all the scolding her sister would receive from their mother when she heard about it. It did not matter that the two sisters now had grown up to be adults, their mother still knew how to scold them if they did not behave properly.

Petunia and her sister only corresponded through letters from then on. In one of these letters, only a few short months after her own wedding, Lily told Petunia she was going to marry her boyfriend James Potter, and she wanted to invite her and her husband to their wedding. Petunia did not even ask Vernon if he wanted to attend, she simply declined the invitation in a short letter in return to her sister. She did tell Vernon about it later on however. Vernon had many, not so fine, names he called James, and was more than satisfied that Petunia had not even bothered him with the invitation at all.

Petunia and Vernon bought themselves a semi-detached house in a place called Little Whinging in Surry. It was a perfect house for them. It had four bedrooms upstairs and a full bath with plenty of room for all the children they wanted for themselves. The rooms downstairs were fairly large with a lounge, a dining room and a nice big kitchen. Petunias happiness were almost complete. She could want nothing better for herself than to live the rest of her life at No 4 Privet Drive with her husband and perhaps half a dozen children. 

The street outside was already full of children playing and all the houses was neatly situated in a nice row alongside the quiet road. Just as Petunia and Vernon preferred it.  
Vernon had saved up some money for them to furnish their home and buy them all the things they needed to get started. His sister Marjorie was also ever so helpful, telling them which shops to go to and which every-day china Petunia should get. Petunia did not like her sister-in-law’s taste very much, however she was a nice substitute for her own sister she thought. Therefore, she kept her mouth shut and bought many things she really did not like only to return them to the shop the next day. If Marjorie asked what had happened to it she could always blame it on Vernons clumsiness, or on herself for that matter, telling her that it unfortunately had broken. One of the vases she had bought together with Marge for example, Petunia sent to her sister Lily as a Christmas present, she knew her sister had a somewhat eccentric taste, and perhaps she would like it. Besides, an ugly Christmas present was better than no present at all. 

Petunia often as not went shopping with Marjorie only to exchange the items in the shop telling them it did not fit in with the rest of her things at home the next day. Petunias habit of dodging conflicts were still frequently used, because Marjorie Dursley was not a woman she would like to contradict. Her sister-in-law also was rather fond of dogs, which Petunia absolutely hated, she found them extremely smelly, noisy, and dirty, but not a word of these feelings slipped through her lips. She preferred Marge to her own sister any day. At least Petunia knew she was the prettiest of the two women, and Petunia ended up treating herself with several nice outfits whenever the two of them went shopping. Marjorie always praised Petunias figure to no end, and Petunia rather liked the compliments. Even though Marjorie Dursley tended to be a little bossy with Petunia, she really did not mind it very much. After all, she had been growing up with a rather strict mother, and a father she did not care much about together with a sister who always outshined herself. Therefore, Petunia thought she was not too bad off with Marge as a sister-in-law after all.

Petunias dearest wish for life by then were to become a stay at home wife, get herself a lot of quite ordinary children, thank you very much, who would be playing around her feet. She was also determined that none of her children would ever detect any kind of favouritism by one child, but every one of them would receive an equal amount of love and affection that she had to give.  
It took her some while, however, to become a mother. That was not as simple as she had thought it would be. Vernon was already a fairly big sized man and she herself turned out to being a little reproductively challenged. However, six months after they had married Petunia found that she was finally pregnant. Her father had died shortly after her wedding and her mothers health were now ebbing away rather quickly. To Petunias great sorrow, her mother died before the time had come for Petunia to give birth to her child.  
Nevertheless her own happiness for finally becoming a mother could not be overshadowed even by her grief for her mothers death, whom she was not even sure would have cared much about her grandchild after all. She recollected her own childhood as rather cold and loveless, due to her mothers lack of love for her. Since she actually was giong to give birth any day Petunia found she would not even be able to attend the funeral. In addition, she most certainly did not want to meet with neither her sister Lily nor her horrible husband once more.

Petunia and Vernon ended up being able to have only the one child, a baby boy. Therefore, Petunia was determined to pour all of her love into this one child and bring him up not wanting anything in the world.  
Still, only one month after she had given birth to her own princeling, Dudley Dursley, she received a letter from her sister telling her that she had given birth to a son herself. His name was Harry Potter and he looked exactly like his father. Petunia felt a pang of triumph that she at least had managed to be the first one of the two to provide a son into the world, and for whatever it was worth, their mother would not be around to compare Lilys son to her own. That actually became some sort of a silver lining to Petunia.

The first year of her life as a mother was ecstatic, she felt blessed to be keeping her own household and prided herself in a clean and neat home. Everything at no 4 Privet Drive was as normal as any other of the nice families in the neighbourhood. Whatever dirty nappies or clothes with sick and drool passed through her house you would not even notice. Dinner was always on the table when her dear husband came home from work and baby Dudley was the most perfect boy in the world. It did not matter how much he screamed, kicked and bowled he was just perfect in every way to her and her husbands eyes.

The Dursleys however had only about a year of complete happiness together with their baby boy. The next year or so Petunias sister Lily and her husband suddenly had been murdered, apparently. Now Petunia and Vernon got landed with their offspring, baby Harry. This was the first time Petunia was even reminded that she once had written anything to that Hogwarts school of Lilys, because that very same headmaster, Professor Dumbledore, seemed to know exactly where she lived. He had actually been the one leaving Harry on their doorstep himself. Petunia could not for the life of her understand why he had been bothering with any of that. She had not told her husband about any correspondance what so ever with this man. Neither did she utter any of theese thoughts to her husband. This Professor Dumbledore had written a letter explaining exactly what had happened to the Potters. The boy now had nobody else but the Dursleys left to him in the world. The Professor had also written quite firmly that they would have to take Harry in to their home and bring him up as their own child.

The shock of it all was so utterly devastating that none of them could truly believed in it. They wanted to protest to this Dumbledore person that this was not true nor could it possibly be so. Petunia could not believe what had happened and actually was rather in shock that this Lord Voldemort person actually had murdered her sister. Lily had told her that she had been worried that this evil person was going to come after her little family or something. Petunia and Vernon had decided that this Lord-person probably was someone who only existed in that other world and therefore did not like to talk about it. The two Dursleys had been far too happy to bother with hidden worlds and evil men that did not concern the two of them at all, up until then.

However, the truth had presented Petunia with a reality that was excessively too harsh to even comprehend. True, she had resented her sister, however she had never imagined that Lily would die on her like this. That Voldemort person really must have been all that dangerous after all then, Petunia thought. He really did exist somehow. Then all of the other things her sister had told her about really could exist too. Like those dreadful living dead things Lily had called Dementors, who was acting like guardians at a horrible prison called Azkaban. These things Lily of course had presented to her a long time before Petunia had been engaged to Vernon and when the two sisters still had some sort of decent contact with each other. Now Lily and her husband had diseased, and Petunia and her husband were landed with a nephew they had never even met before. Petunia was surprised that she somehow felt all empty inside regarding the loss of her sister, since the two of them had been so different throughout their entire lives. However, she still had no wish nor inclination at all to raise her sisters son.

This Professor Dumbledore had written in a letter to them exactly what had happened to Lily and James. The thought of all of that alone was horrible enough. Lily had also mentioned that this Lord Voldemort person might even be after the little baby boy Harry. Petunia however, did not believe a single word about that, because she could not for the life of her understand what the meaning of all that would have been. Why on earth would a grown man be searching for a little baby only to murder it? How could a one year old boy possibly be of such a life threat to a grown man she could simply not comprehend. The fact that it had to be exactly her sisters child he needed to murder for that matter, also made her snort in derision and shake her head. She knew Lily to be rather big-headed regarding herself and thought her to have become quite conceited. There was nothing special about her son and that was that.

Nevertheless, the Potters were both dead now, so she could not know for sure now would she, if there truly was something extraordinary about Harry Potter. It seemed like someone had managed to prevent this man from killing her nephew anyways, and now he had ended up on their perfectly normal doorstep. Petunia and Vernon now were this childs only living relatives apparently. How annoying all of that was. She hardly believed it to be true. She had her own darling boy to take care of. Why did Lily have to get herself killed?! Why did not this James Potter at least have any living relatives left to him for Harry to live with? She even thought that Lily should have been more careful in her life and whom she associated herself with. She also blamed her sisters husband for what had happened, it must have been him. Perhaps he had lost a gamble or something stupid. She and Vernon had always thought of him as a good for nothing person, not at all good enough for someone of Petunias family. Nevertheless, the Evans´s had taken him to their hearts and Lily had gone ahead and married him for some reason or other. Then if you please, during only a few years between them, the whole lot of them had all gone off and died and now Petunia and her own husband was left all alone and stuck with this boy.

Vernon was so aggravated by their new situation that he was determined to get rid of Harry somehow. He finally decided they would leave him at a nice orphanage he had found in London and then they would be done with him altogether. Therefore, one late stormy November evening the two of them put both their own darling boy Dudley and baby Harry in the back seat of their car and drove off towards the selected orphanage ready to leave their only nephew, Harry Potter there, never to see him again. Petunia had agreed to it. Disregarding the knot she felt in her stomach about it all. She did not like to contradict her husband. He was quite opinionated and usually she loved him for that, only this was not a new sofa nor a car they were trading in. However, she did not say anything to him, as she herself would have loved to get rid of Harry. She did agree that Harry was an inconvenience and that this would be the better choice for all of them.

They had been driving only a few miles away from their home when the rain had started to pour down and lightning was dancing around them in the sky above, when all of a sudden a huge tree came crashing down in front of their car, blocking the road completely. Vernon found that rather strange because he could not remember any huge trees along the road in this area. Vernon left the car to check out if they somehow could pass it anyway. Although, as he closed the door an envelope had somehow fallen onto Petunias lap. It was maticulately addressed to her. It even had the name of the road they were driving on it and her front seat of the very car she was sitting in. It was a peculiar crimson coloured envelope. The writing was rather familiar, however she could not think of whom ever knew that she was there. Her hands shook vigorously as she opened it up. All of a sudden, the envelope popped out of her hands and started to yell rather loudly at her. Smoke erupted from of it and she was afraid it was going to burst into flames. It was the angriest male voice she had ever heard in her entire life. He shouted loudly to her that she was Harry Potters only living relative and she had better take care of him or he would have to come and see to it himself, and he promised her she would rather not want that. He even made her swear that she would not attempt to give Harry away one more time. His wrath was so terrifying that Petunia easily swore out loudly on her own life that she would take him in and care for him. After this, the envelope did burst into flames, Petunia screamed and then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone again. Petunias ears was ringing from the words he had shouted at her. The silence that followed the yelling felt like an explosion, soon to be followed by other noises.

The havoc the letter had caused had naturally woken up the two children lying in the back seat and they were bawling louder than she had ever heard them bawle before. However, this was the only thing her husband had heard from it and he was now rapidly returning to their car. He helped Petunia calm their own child and then he noticed the pale face on his wife as she was holding baby Harry tightly to her chest.

She was so shaken up by the incident that she told him to turn the car around and drive home immediately. She had changed her mind about it all, she said. Vernon had never seen his wife like this before in his entire life so he obeyed rather confused with it all. She urged him to hurry up and get out of that place where the tree had fallen. He kept asking her over and over again what had happened but she did not tell him anything about it for a whole week. When she finally did tell him what had happened she left out the part that a man had shouted at her and that this man seemed to be watching young Harry somehow. She made it sound as if a man had come up to the car-window and spoken strictly to her that it was a mortal sin not to raise her sisters child when he had no one else left to him in the world to call his family. She did tell him that she thought it was someone from the magical world however. She did not like to lie to her husband and pleaded him not to enquire any further on the matter. They were simply left with Harry Potter and that was that.


	4. Dodging the Mystery

From that day on Petunia decided, she wanted to alter her entire story about her family to the world and most of all to young Harry Potter. She and Vernon decided that her sister had died in a car crash together with her husband James, and that was where Harry had received that scar on his forehead. She did not very much like to tell lies because she knew she was not very good at it. Therefore, she simply told Harry when he grew old enough to think for himself, that he should not ask questions, and that he was not to badger her about anything to do with his parents. Most definately, she did not want him to know anything about that other world. She decided to oppress the whole truth for him, together with her husband. It simply seemed to be easier than to tell him the truth about all of it. But most importantly, she did not want him to really be magical at all. In the end, she almost started to believe in her own lies about both Harry’s family and that other magical world, that really did make everything much easier for her to convince young Harry that was the truth too.  

 

Allthough, when Harry was just a toddler, Petunia started to notice things he did that she remembered her little sister used to do as well. Things like making soap bubbles fly all across the room at will, just as Lily had done. Her own son Dudley, enjoyed it a lot at first too, just as she herself had enjoyed it when she was just a little girl. However, Petunia and Vernon did not want their darling son to encourage Harry to do any of that at all. Therefore, they started to make Harry think it was bad what he was doing. They thought Dudley it was bad as well so that he should not encourage Harry to do it. Petunia remembered all too well how her own parents had favoured her baby sister over her, and she did not want Lily’s son to steal away her own darling boy’s attention. She did not want the feelings she had once felt, to become Dudley’s feelings about himself too.

So what if Harry felt bad and like an outsider? His mother had indirectly made her feel bad enough about herself back then, this time around, it was Lily’s sons turn to feel it. She begun praising Dudley for everything he did, no matter how good or bad it was, and in return, she ignored or put Harry down for everything that he did. Nothing Harry did was ever good enough for Petunia and her husband and everything their own son did was perfect. All of their bitter resentment towards Harrys parents was turned against him. Petunia also felt a little resentment against her own mother for not loving her better when she was a young girl, however she never mentioned any of this to her darling Vernon.

 

No wonder Dudley became a spoiled brat. Harry however, was neglected in every way in his life. Except, at the beginning Petunia cared a little more for him then than even Vernon was aware of. Allthough she told herself that the only reason she did so, was simply in fear of receiving another of those horrible yelling letters. Besides, Harry reminded her all that much of her sister, and through Lily, her mother too. No matter what she told herself, Petunia had loved her sister when they were kids. In addition, the shock of losing her so dramatically made Petunia somewhat pity the child. That was before he started showing proper signs of being magical of course.

 

Petunias mother had truly been a beautiful woman and her sister had inherited all of her beauty and most particularly her eyes. Petunia had not noticed that Lily’s and Harrys eyes were exactly the same before he looked at her scornfully one day when he was only three years old and she had favoured Dudley over Harry quite wrongly. She almost panicked, seeing her own mothers scorn in his eyes. She actually had to step out of the room for a minute to calm down. She then remembered that she was the only one left of the Evans family to even remember her mother. She also was the adult person out of the two of them and she was the one in charge. In her house, it was her rules that mattered, she thought. When she returned to the boys, she had decided to overlook Harry as best as she could and try to ignore the shame she felt for doing him wrong like this. Whereas the years passed, she tried to not look at Harry that much at all to avoid the scornful eyes that resembled her mother so much.

 

Then there were all of the magical stuff Harry could do. Petunia desperately wanted Harry simply to be a normal person. However, every time she so much as tried to cut his hair short it grew out again just as wild and bushy as it had been the previous day. Nothing she ever did to try to make him look like an ordinary boy was a success. He had the exact same ruffled kind of hair as his father had once had. Petunia remembered James Potter at that restaurant, looking incredible scruffy in her eyes. His son certainly had inherited all of that scruffiness, and he simply did not fit in with the rest of her own well-groomed family. Perhaps it did not help matters that Harry only wore Dudley’s old clothes she thought. They certainly did not fit him, only Vernon had sworn he would never spend his money on any garments for Harry in his life. That would be Harry’s punishment for his insolence of simply being alive. He announced early on that Dudley’s old clothes would do very well enough for him. The only thing was that it made him look rather like some sort of a hippie in Petunias eyes. However, she knew she did not dare to have any say on the matter once her husband had declared such a valiant statement.

 

She was so ashamed of Harry’s appearance that she did not like to bring him anywhere at all. Only she did have to go grocery shopping every now and then and she could not very well leave him at home by himself. She was far too afraid of receiving one of those crimson envelopes again for that. Therefore, she tucked him into many lairs of blankets so that only his head was visible. She put a hat on his head that she could tie underneath his chin to hide his hair. Thus, she figured that nobody would see much of him anyway. Her own son Dudley was only too happy to sit in front of Harry in the stroller being shown off to the world as if he was the only baby there. Luckily, the stroller was big enough for the two of them, at least for a while. The lengths she went to because she was ashamed of Harry’s appearance was extraordinary.

When the two boys grew out of the stroller she had to make Vernon take care of the shopping altogether. She cared far too much about what the neighbours might say if she displayed Harry to the world looking that scruffy. She did not want anybody gossiping about her in the neighbourhood for the life of her. Therefore, she figured she would rather stay at home so that she did not have to take him outside much at all.

 

Petunia pretended to Harry that none of the strange things he did was anything out of the ordinary. Nevertheless, one time she tried to put on him a woollen old sweater knitted for Dudley by his aunt Marge. Dudley quite expressively had told her was itchy and ugly, and he downright refused to wear it. So when she tried to force it down Harrys head, the sweater strangely but quite clearly shrunk in her hands. It was all she could do not to panic and scream out loud seeing magic happen so clearly between her hands. Harrys magic and will was so strong that she wanted to shout at him to stop it, but then again she did not want to give him the satisfaction ofknowing that he actually was the one who did this. He probably did not realize any of it himself either, not yet anyway. Therefore, she simply told him that the sweater must have shrunk in the washing machine, and she gave up on trying forcing it on him altogether.

 

Things like this kept happening to Harry and his relatives during his childhood. Every time weird things happened, Petunia and Vernon did their best to come up with a story to make it all plausible to Harry. Therefore, in a sense they did manage to squash the magic out of him. At least they oppressed it for him so that he did not realize very well what was going on.

Therefore, their lives continued at number four Privet Drive quite as normal. Petunia was still determined to punish Harry for being magical and having a personality so much similar to her sister. She sheltered her own darling Dudley from all things that could be magical. She even mentioned as little as possible of it to Vernon.

 

Petunia and Vernon also refused to live any differently than they would have done if Harry were not with them. They kept taking photographs of Dudley to put up on the walls, but none was taken of Harry. They didn´t even provide him with one of the proper bedrooms upstairs. Instead, they let him sleep in the cupboard under the stairs. They both kept hoping that he suddenly would disappear into thin air, as Petunia felt like her sister had done. Petunia basically did all of the things she swore she would not put any of her own children through when she had wished for many children on her own. But then again, this was the child of that same sister, who had made her life miserable somehow. Petunia had felt neglected, overlooked and unloved all through her childhood life, and she put all the blame on Lily, not her mother so much. It was only fitting that she made her sisters son suffer as she herself had suffered during her young life. Besides, she thought it character building for him. If she and her husband could squash all this magical nonsense out of Harry, that would be all for the better. She convinced herself that if her parents had not encouraged Lily to do all those magical things she did, she would not have become a witch, and her own life would have been a whole lot better in itself.

 

Petunia and Vernon’s life at Privet Drive went on as the years passed. Their son Dudley might be a little spoiled, but Petunia simply could not help herself. He was her only son, and Harrys presence only made her want to spoil him even more. Her resentment towards her sister did not die when she had passed, it had only transferred to her son. Vernon felt the same way about Harry, only his hatred were directed straight at his father James. Harry happened to look exactly like that horrible father of his and that certainly did not improve matters.

 

Vernon definately did not want to waste any money on Harry if he could help it. If Harry needed anything at all, he would only get be the broken things that Dudley could bare to part with, which was almost nothing. The biggest exception from this were Harrys glasses. Dudley did not need any glasses, however that was obviously something that young Harry needed. He kept on bumping into walls and all of the furniture around the house when he had started to walk. In addition, Harry seemed to have fun every time he did so because he kept bumping off things like a bouncy ball and it seemed he did not get hurt at all. It downright seemed like he had a blast with it, and the two Dursley’s did not want anything of that for him. Petunia and Vernon figured out the only way to keep him from doing so and possibly manage to act as a normal person, would be to actually provide him with a set of glasses in addition to being strict with him when he was learning to walk.

 

Vernon was grudging so much about the very expenses the frames of children’s spectacles would cost him that he ended up popping into the lost-and-found department at the local Police station to find him a very old used pair of children’s spectacle-frames that might fit him. Vernon was rather satisfied with himself for coming up with such a clever idea. He found an old-fashioned frame for him just like his own grandfather had used to wear and then Harry could finally have his stupid glasses, and he´d better be grateful for this fine gesture Vernon thought. Theese were things they were willing to provide for him and he should be thanking them for even the food they placed in front of him on the table, in Vernon’s opinion.

 

During the years, Vernon came to witness Harry do some rather strange and incomprehensible things. But thankfully, he never did anything like his father had conjured up at his and Petunias wedding. That was the day he had realized that magic could be something entirely different from simply pulling a rabbit out of a top hat. Petunias sister had also done something weird. He remembered that James had upturned the whole room when he had turned into that monster. Then he vaguely remembered that Lily had somehow restored everything back to normality again.

Vernon had to admit to himself that he secretly was a little afraid of Harry. The fact that he was a wizard and that he might already be in possession of, or possibly could acquire some kind of dangerous powers, scared Vernon witless, just like Harrys father had done at the wedding. However, Harry never had shown any sign of turning into a bear or some crazy animal like that, yet. Therefore, Vernon thought Harry possibly had to be trained up for that from that freak school Petunia had told him about. Except Harry was never to enter such a school, the two of them had decided quite firmly. Harry was after all living under their roof and they were the ones to set the rules for his way of life. Therefore, they planned for him never to know anything about anything of that magical world of his. He was to become a normal person and be educated at ordinary public schools.

 

Unfortunately, it seemed Vernon and Petunia did not manage to squash the magic out of Harry after all, and finally when he turned eleven he received his letter from Hogwarts as Petunia had been dreading all of these years. Even though Vernon had done his very best to avoid Harry receiving it, he obviously had someone from the other world looking out for him and making sure he got it after all. The very same person also seemed to have made sure he managed to find his way to Hogwarts that first year. Even though his ticket had been so utterly ridiculous with a made-up platform number and all.

Petunia had explained a little to Vernon about the school Lily had gone off to. Therefore, Vernon knew that it existed, even though he certainly did not want Harry to know anything about it. Deep down he knew perfectly well that he, Vernon, had behaved badly towards Harry all through his life and therefore he did not very much like the idea of Harry getting his hands on any kind of "weapons".

 

Nevertheless, life actually did improve slightly at Privet Drive after Harry had left them for that school of his. Because he did not return for any of the school holidays except the summer holidays, and other than that, their lives went on basically as normal as they should have been before they had got landed with him. Dudley seemed to enjoy himself better too. He did not get so aggravated simply because Harry was around him. Dudley finally received all of his parent’s attention as he was supposed to do from the very beginning. Although, Dudley had suffered rather badly from that pig tale that horrible giant had given him when Harry had received his letter. Even though they had got it surgically removed, his psychological scars did not mend all that quickly. He had become a little jumpy, and had misgivings about tall people in general. His parents swore to him that nobody would ever know about this outside of the family household. Dudley had actually become a little shy to expose his rear end to anybody for a long time. He did not like to take showers with the other boys at his school either. However, since he was one of the big bullies there, he always managed to scare people away from the showers or make people stay away from him when he was changing his clothes for his exercises.

 

Therefore, the summer holidays were the only time the Dursleys had to spend together with their nephew Harry, and from time to time Dudley still liked to bully him. However, Dudley actually had become rather hesitant to really do so. He knew Harry probably had acquired a lot of dangerous magic through the years, thus he did not dare taunt him as much as he had used to do when he was only a child, back when Harry did not know he was a magical person at all.

 

During his last couple of years at Smeltings Dudley had taken up boxing and really loved his training and all the boxing matches he had won on his school. His father was as proud of him as he could ever be and Dudley liked to show himself off to anybody who cared to watch him demonstrate it. His mother too was immensely proud of him, and mollycoddled him as much as she possibly could when he was at home.

 

Although the school nurse had been very strict with him losing some of his puppy-weight. There was simply nothing Petunia could do for her darling boy to avoid it. She knew that Vernon’s side of the family always had had rather large constitutions, and both of Vernon’s parents had actually died of a heart attack at a rather young age.  She certainly did not want that to happen to her only darling son. This was her sole motivation for making her dear boy suffer the rather strict diet the school nurse had set upon him. Petunia had been told that he was in danger of becoming very ill if she did not cooperate. Her only way of sympathizing with him was to make the entire family join Dudley in on his diet.

She did not care if Harry was hungry. However, she did care about Vernon being hungry, so she usually made him a rather large lunchbox for him to eat in the car on his way to work. She knew he would be quite impossibly crabby if he did not get enough sustenance.

Vernon did cooperate with the diet even though he was feeling rather reluctant about it. He too knew very well the grave consequences it might impact on his son if he did not lose some weight. He knew he probably should be doing so himself as well, however he had never had any true motivation for it. His son was young and had the whole future in front of him, therefore they needed to help him achieve his goal. This was however the only thing Vernon would have liked for Dudley to inherit from the Evans family; their constitution.

 

Petunia loved to cook and both she and her little family loved her thick gravies and lovely puddings. Only Harry had inherited the Evans’s constitution out of the two boys. The whole Evans family had always been able to eat a lot of food and never put on any weight at all somehow. Not that Harry ever seemed to have any real appetite. Vernon always liked to point out things like this when they were sitting down and having a nice dinner together.

Vernon did not even consider the fact that Petunia never ate much either. She actually was much the same as Harry she had noticed. Sometimes she tried to distract her husband from talking about these things, because she often as not felt like he just as easily could have meant that she was too skinny. Petunia never had much appetite either, even though she always ate everything she wanted to. Vernon and Dudley on the other hand seemed to never get enough food. As the years passed by, she seemed to spend more and more time in the kitchen trying to make sure her husband and son were kept well fed. She was a little afraid of being told not to have served them enough food.  That was a scorn she had learned at her mother’s hand, and she would never forget it in her entire life.

 

The biggest eater of the whole Dursely family though was Vernon’s sister Marjorie. She always seemed to eat for two persons at all meals whenever she visited. Petunia somehow resented that. A woman should take care of herself in any way she possibly could, and Marge never seemed to have the same priority as Petunia had on that matter. She was not very lady-like in that way Petunia thought. Whenever Marge were due to visit Privet Drive Petunia always had to stock-up on certain items, and more than ever did she have to be the one to do all the work in the kitchen. Not that she minded much. Petunia had always liked working with food. Besides, the kitchen was her domain, she was sort of happy to be allowed to have some time to herself in there and she sometimes was even glad to leave the lounge to fetch something for Marge or Vernon. Petunia did not like too much noise really, and Marge talked constantly. If she happened not to talk to either of them, she liked to talk baby talk to her pups. Petunia secretly disliked that Marge always had to bring one or two dogs with her when she visited. They smelled and made a mess everywhere. Besides Marge insisted that they ate their food in Petunias pristine kitchen.

 

Marge also liked to taunt Harry. Petunia deeply, however also secretly, resented that, she felt like she, Petunia, and her closest family were the only ones with any reasonable motive to dislike Harry.  Marge did not like Harry for entirely different reasons it seemed, and Petunia noticed the tiny hints she kept dropping regarding her late family, the Evans´s. She was a little afraid that Vernon had told his sister that her father had been a member of the working class. Petunia did not much mind Marge talking disparagingly about Potters family though.Except, to Petunia it seemed that Marjorie did not think the Evans family anything at all, and even though she did not say a word about it to either Vernon or his sister, Petunia felt deeply slighted by everything Marge uttered about them.

 

As the years passed by, Petunia stoppped minding so much Marjories taunting of Harry. All of it had become some sort of a routine. Even Harry seemed to adapt to it. Only when he made her blow up like a huge balloon did Petunia realize how dangerous it was to have Marge visiting them whenever Harry was at home. Even though Vernon’s sister did not remember anything that had happened, both Petunia and Vernon remembered it quite clearly. Somebody had actually visited them from that Ministry of Magic she had heard talking of by Lily, they had set Marjorie right and wiped the whole incident from her memory. She did not seem to remember a thing of it actually. Nevertheless, Marge only visited them around Easter or Christmases from then on. They kept telling her that Harry was locked away on the made up school of his. St Brutus’s had been all Vernon’s idea.  Initially Petunia liked the idea, however they might have crossed a line with Harry at that time she realized. Well, as long as she did not receive any crimson smoking envelopes with a yelling voice making her feel ashamed of herself she was all right.


	5. Dudleys Nightmare

Throughout Dudleys entire life he had a constant rebellious feeling inside of him, and he felt he needed to vent it out on something all the time, and it had become even more so in his teens. His mother had told him that it was all a part of growing up and becoming an adult. He really wanted to pick a fight with somebody all the time. Not with his friends ofcourse, but it was like he ached to taunt and bully everybody else around him. The only person he most particularly did NOT want to get in a fight with outside in the streets however, was his cousin Harry. Dudley somehow had gained a certain amount of respect for him because of Harrys abilities. That is, Dudley did not exactly know what his cousins abilities were, and that made it all a little more frightening alltoghether. Dudley had been given a pigs tale once and a giant toungue another time from people from the wizarding world, and he certainly did not want his best friends to know all about that, let alone see him in such a state. He imagined that he would loose his position as the biggest and baddest leader of his group if they knew anything about that, or even worse, if they saw him in such a state.

When he first had started at Smeltings school, his best friend Piers Polkiss had asked him whether or not Harry was going to attend Smeltings too. He had wanted to continue the chasing and punching game they had all been a part of from their last school. Dudley had actually been dreading that kind of questions about Harry from his mates, since he and his family had found out that Harry was a wizard. Except his parents seemed to allready know about that, to his own big surprise. They had told him afterwards that they had to pretend to both him and Harry that they did not know anything since they had planned to oppress the whole thing from Harry.

Dudley had ended up at the last moment before he had to leave for school, planning together with his parents that Harry was going to attend some public school or other. His father had come up with the idea for Dudley to simply tell his friends that he did not know for sure because he did not care about his cousin at all. His father wanted him to pretend that Harry was not a part of his life at all, or at least that he was beneath his concerns completely.

At the time that kind of idea seemed like a good one. However the second summer holiday he was at home, his aunt Marge had come around the house to visit, and his father desperately needed to come up with a better, and more waterproof plan for her to believe in. She would probably want to know all about it. Therefore he had told her that Harry was attending St. Brutus´s school for criminal boys. That was indeed a better plan alltogether Dudley thought. Because he then had a proper school to pin his cousin to. Besides, telling his friends that he was a criminal made it a little easier for them to avoid Harry alltogether. His friends even felt a little sorry for Dudley because he had to be realted to a criminal, and Dudley liked all the kind of attention he could get, so he let them believe it.

His friend Gordon however, always had to ask what he had been incriminated for and for how long he was supposed to attend that school and so on. Dudley, just like his mother, did not like to lie, because he too knew he was really bad at it. No matter how much he had been practising with his father at home he somehow felt his face turn red and his hands just did not want to stay still, but had to move around like crazy whenever he tried to tell a lie. Gordon had a knack of seeing through liars, and Dudely did not like for him to catch him at it. Therefore Dudley would rather mock him about beeing in love with Harry for concerning about him, than to answer Gordons questions about him. Wich acutally had the right effect, Dudely felt. Then he was relieved of the stress from Gordons questions about Harry, and Dudley did not have to lie too much.

The summer he turned fifteen Dudley kept on dodging Harrys precence whenever they both were outside the house. Dudley also kept hoping his gang of friends would not detect him in the streets and start taunting him, because they did not know what he was. Dudley really was more intimidated by Harry and his powers at this point than he would like to admit to anyone. Allthough he certainly did not want his friends to know anything about that. To them Harry had always been their favourite punching target, and seeing as he still was a bit scrawny looking, they still thought of him as an easy object to tackle. They didn't know he was a wizard and could do terrifying things to you with his wand if properly ticked off. Harry had threatend Dudley with this many times over the years, and Dudley could not really trust if Harry was serious about his threats or not. So far he hadn't done anything to him. However, he kept remembering a snake set loose on him a long time ago, and what Harry had done to his aunt Marge when she had taunted long him enough just two summers earlier. All of this was more than enough for Dudley to want to keep Harry at a safe distance.

Dudley had been hanging out with his friends again as usual one particularly warm evening. They had all been dodging their parents radar during the summer holiday feeling like they wanted to be free of them and act like young adults themselves. They had pretended to be hanging around different houses every day. Instead they had been hanging on corners, buying fast food as often as they could, and teaching younger kids in the neighbourhood how to show their elders some respect! Dudley had also been taking up smoking. This was his best friend Piers Polkisses idea. Both of his parents smoked and so he had nicked a package from them one day and they all had been giving it a go. Dudley really hated it at first, and actually threw up all over his new NIKE shoes. Alltough so had Piers and Gordon and they all had laughed hard about it afterwards. However with a bit of training they all started to get the hang of it. All of them felt a little cooler alltogether, as if they were becoming proper adults or something.

That evening a young kid from the neighbourhood had tried to be smart with Dudley, so his friends had been holding him tight and Dudley had practiced one of his good right hooks on him. He had got it in real nicely and the kid had been lying bleeding and whimpering on the pavement as they left him. However, they didn't want any trouble with the police or whatever over it, so they had all scarpered on their bikes. They were still talking and sniggering about it when they got closer to home and started splitting up.

Dudley left his friends in a good mood looking forward to the next evening when Gordon would have his familys house to himself. They all knew they would be going through his fathers magazines. They had found one particular magazine with some pretty good looking women the last time they were there, and Dudley was really looking forward to be checking it out some more. So after he had said his goodbyes to his mates he trundled his bike and were humming on a tune he had heard on the radio earlier that day. He was walking down Magnolia Cresent when Harry caught up with him. He felt his good spirits ebb away immediately, because he was sure Harry would have heard his friends calling him by a new nickname, and he had plenty of those at home from his mother. Harry knew every one his mother liked to call him and Dudley secretly felt like he had grown out of them a long time ago but he did not have the heart to tell her to give them up just yet.

Dudley was completely right about Harry having heard them call him big D and he kept taunting him about it, that and the fact that he had been running around beating up younger kids in the neighbourhood, on their way home. Dudley felt his resentment towards his cousin rising and he really wanted to punch Harry in the face for beeing so snarky. However, as difficult as it was to him he managed to keep his temper, remembering that Harry was an almost grown wizard by now, in addition to also knowing that Harry carried his wand around at all times theese days.

Dudley and Harry both automaticly took the short-cut between Magnolia Cresent and Wisteria Walk when many different things happened at the same time. They were still bickering when Dudley thought he had found a nerve on Harry about his nightmares. Harry of course, told him stricktly to shut up about it and was actually pointing his wand directly at Dudleys heart. This really scared Dudley more than anything had done in his life. Dudley yelled to Harry to point it somewhere else.

Then suddenly he felt like he were doused in ice cold water or something. The stifeling warm summer evening had suddenly become pitch black and ice cold. He could feel his breath turn to frost as it left his mouth. In addition everything around him had gone dead quiet. He could not see his hands before him and felt panick rising in his chest and throat. He was convinced Harry had done something to his eyes and ears, even though he could still hear Harry standing nearby. Dudleys voice had started to shake with fear, anger and panick all at the same time, as he shouted at Harry what he was doing?! Except Harry claimed he did not do anything. Dudley knew for sure he was lying, because that was the only reasonable explanation he could make of it. After all Dudley had seen with his own eyes that Harry had been pointing his wand at him the second before this had happened. Dudley threatened Harry with telling his dad about this, and that he, Dudley, would punch him if he did not make it stop at once. Harry simply told him to shut up. Therefore Dudley took a swing at him and managed to hit Harry hard in the head. Then Dudley blindly ran for it as fast as he could so that Harry could not manage to hex him or anything in return. Only too late did he realize that he seemed to be running towards something even colder and darker than where he had been before.

Then, right in front of him, he heard the most horrendous ratteling of a breathing noise. Dudley could still not see anything and panicked even more. Harry were calling on him to stop and come back to him, and for some reason or other Harry told him to keep his mouth shut at any cost. Except now Dudley could hardly even hear Harrys voice. He had stumbled on to the ground and felt like something invisible and ice cold was pinning him to the ground. He could not move a single muscle. In addition, someone had put on a horror movie inside of his head and the background sound was that horrifying ratteling breath coming from something right above him.

The movie inside his head was so very much 3D-like, he felt as if he was living in it. He seemed to have stumbled right into his own worst nightmare. He was standing all alone in the world, and he felt that nobody at all loved him. He saw his parents looking down their noses at him, both of them had hatred in their eyes and were turning away from him as they kept shouting foul words at him. He was standing in a room full of people. Some of them he knew very well, like all of his best friends. Other people he noticed around him were teachers from school or the shop girl on the corner. Everybody surrounding him was taunting and torturing him. People kept shouting at him and sending him looks of hatred everywhere he turned, it made him feel completely lost and alone in the world. He felt utterly evicted from all the societies he knew. He had never felt anything like this in his entire life before. His heart and lungs was frozen to his core, and there were only darkness and shades of grey surrounding him. Mostly he felt as if there was no escape route or any kind of light in the horizon. He felt like he was drowning into a life he never had thought he would experience for himself. It seemed as if he was living exactly what had been Harrys life. «The coin had flipped”, sort of speak. It horrified him more than anything had done in his entire life before. He felt as if he was staring into the abyss and nobody cared a jolt about saving him. His vision showed him that he only had to take one leap out into nothingness and he would die. He really felt like dying rather than living the life in his head at the moment. He sensed he craved death to take him away, and he felt an enourmous lump in his throat. Because even though nobody seemed to love him, he knew that he somehow still loved his family. Both his parents and all of his friends, his favourite teacher at school, and even Harry. He somehow loved them all, but they hated the very sight of him. They even tried to throw things at him to make him go away and all he wanted to do was to shout out to make them stop it and go back to loving him again. Tears poured out of his eyes and the lump in his throat made it difficult for him to even breathe. Never in his life had he felt like this. Never before had he been the one standing alone, so horrifyingly separated from everybody else. Then his best friend Piers, showed up right in front of him in his image and tried to strangle him. All of his other friends was cheering Piers on and some of them even tried to help him murder Dudley. His final moment on earth had come, he was sure of it.

The attack lasted only for a couple of minutes, allthough to Dudley it felt like a whole lifetime. Then suddenly Harry was there. It seemed he had lifted the nightmare away from him or someting. Dudley was lying on the ground breathing hard, as if he had been running for his life for weeks. He dried his eyes, coughed and could feel the taste of blood in his mouth, his veins was pumping out adrenaline, and he was covered in sweat from head to toe. The heat of the summer night was suddenly back on. His t-shirt were drenched in sweat, but he still had that ice cold feeling inside of him. He was shivering all over his body and he felt nauseated by the whole experience. He could see the stars and hear the distant traffick again, and he started to feel a huge wave of relief rushing in over him. It was not true after all then, he was not going to die that day. Dudley felt all dizzy and his feet could not support him for some reason. Something must have happened so that the horrific movie inside his head had dissapeared, and the only person he could see around him was Harry. Dudley could not for a moment believe that Harry would have been the one who had saved him. It must have been something else that had happened to make it all go away.

His head was ringing from the ratteling breathing sound and he still had flashes of that nightmare on his retina, he would like to go home to his parents and make sure they did not hate him. He needed to see and really feel for himself that it was all over. Dudley could not comprehend what exactly had just happened and he would need to find some sort of logical explanation to it. The more he thought of it the more conviced he became that it all must have been Harrys doing. He had done it to make him feel how his own life had always been like. Harry had been poking his wand directly at his heart after all. It had to be him. He had not seen anybody else there. The two of them had been bickering right before this had happened. Perhaps Harry wanted to punish him for his taunt about that guy called Cedric he had been shouting about in his dreams?

Later on, Dudley could not for the life of him remember how he had managed to get himself home. He had some weird vague memory of an old batty lady whacking a hobo round the head with a string bag containing several tin cans, and yelling her head off. Only he could not see that any of that could possibly have any sort of connection with this horrendous episode he had seen when he had been alone with Harry just then. Therefore he did not mention any of this even to his parents. In case it all had been a part of this horrormovie he had just witnessed inside of his head.

Dudley had been raised not to believe that there might be anything happening to you that you could not understand, nor that things might take place only inside of your head. Dudley could not understand what had happened to him for sure. He had been able to hear and feel something near him though. However, he did not like the idea that anything could be truly alive and make him feel theese horrible things he had just felt, or make him see the horror that he had just seen inside of his head. His father had always said that Harry was a freak for having any kind of imagination. Dudley certainly did not want to be looked upon as a freak by anybody. Especially after what he had just experienced. So, he shut his mouth about it and supressed his thoughts and feelings about anything he had just seen inside his head and the possibility of having met anything that he could not see to his parents. He felt a little dumbstruck about the whole thing. The easiest way for him to make it all out was to pin everything on Harry. For all he knew he could be right.

When they finally had returned to No 4 Privet Drive, Dudley could not keep his nautia at bay any longer and happened to throw up all over their front-doorstep. His mother panicked ofcourse, and to Dudelys great relief she was concerned for him and both she and his father both cared for his well beeing. Dudley really would like to hear Harrys side of the story. To his enormously great surprise however, his mother knew about theese horrible creatures Harry was telling them all about too. The fact that she knew about them really scared the socks off him all over again. That made it all so much more realistic than he liked to admit to even himself. If it only had been Harry who told them a cock and bull story about an alleged attack, he could more easily be able to forget about it all he thought. Only now his mother had made it all more real for him too. She said that her sister had told her about them. His mother whom hardly even mentioned her sister. Here she was telling them all that she knew about theese living dead things from Harrys world. Even Harry seemed to be surprised. Dudley hardly believed that it actually was for real, that he had just been attacked by one of the Dementors Harry was telling them about. After all of this revealing information from his mother, Dudley realized he actually must have been close to dying, or as Harry put it, loosing his soul. Dudley did not understand what that would mean, nor did his mother obviously, because she screamed and shook him hard to check if his soul was still intact.

After an hour of explaining, owls coming and going, and Harrys changing his mind over again if he were leaving or staying, Dudelys father decided to throw him out of his house. Except then his mother all of a sudden recieved a very angry crimson letter who more or less exploded into a horrendously loud voice shouting «Remember my last».  However cryptic that was, Petunia did not reveal anything about it to anyone at all. Not even her husband and son. The evening ended with Harry beeing sent to his room for the rest of the summer, and the whole matter of Harry staying or leaving was put to an end.

Dudley however, did not feel like he had got all the answers needed to his questions. He had wanted for Harry to explain a lot more to him about what had happened to him. But that did not seem to be of any significance to anybody but himself, with Harry beeing sent to his room his parents had somehow put an end to the conversation. Dudley wanted to talk to his mother about it before he turned in that evening, but she did not seem to want to talk about it anymore, she simply wanted him to forget all about it. Perhaps she did not know anything more than what she had told earlier.

Dudley did not know how to begin to handle this so called "Dementor attack". However, he imagined that if he had somehow mangaed to become better friends with Harry perhaps he could ask him a little more about it. All of this resulted in Dudley not knowing how to behave towards Harry at all.  He had started off taking his lead from his parents. However, they did not know or understand excactly what Dudley had just experienced, nor did they understand that Harry aparrently actually had saved his life. His parents kept treating Harry as they had always done. Except Dudley had suddenly seen Harry in a totally different light, something he never could tell his parents about. He therefore, quite subtle started to treat Harry nicely. It all was so discreetly done that Harry probably did not even notice it himself. Dudley simply stayed out of Harrys way. Nor did he taunt him anymore. He figured none of that would not be funny anymore, because of what he had witnessed in his vision.

Dudley was the only one of the Dursleys who felt any different towards Harry. Something grave had shifted in him in a way. From that day on, deep down, Dudley knew that he owed Harry his thanks for rescuing his life, and for the very first time in his life he felt grateful towards him. However how on earth he was supposed to conduct himself towards his cousin from then on, he did not know. He now knew something his parents did not, nor did anybody else inthe world; He knew he had seen the world through Harrys eyes that night, or so he believed anyway. He swore to himself never to make his life become what he had been witnessing that evening. He actually started feeling bad about his earlier behaviour towards Harry, but did not directly want to tell him so. Also he had been brought up to think nothing of him, and all of that was not something he could simply forget just like that was it?! In addition, he was too scared of Harry to say anything directly to him about it to be honest. He actually was afraid that Harry would taunt him about it if he did apologise. He knew his cousin did not have any love for him. He did not think that he himself had ever liked Harry much either, however during his attack he remembered that he had somehow come to feel something for him after all.

Dudley did not tell anybody in the world about what he had seen during the attack. Not even his dear old parents whom he really knew loved him more than life itself. Nevertheless, he kept revisiting the nightmare every now and then, mostly at night times, but also when he was awake if he were at leasure or bored.

His best friend Piers Polkiss was beeing an arse about it ofcourse. Whenever Dudley stared empty infront of him with his mouth slightly open, with his eyes unfocused, Piers would mock him for not paying attention to what he had said. Dudley lost his patience with him one day and punched him in the face. He regretted it very much the second he had done it. Piers did not speak to him for a fortnight, and Dudley knew he had to apologise to him for it. That was something Dudley had never done in his entire life before. Allthough after giving it a lot of thought during a couple of days he decided he would. He thought if he did not apologise he would loose his best friend forever. Worse than that, he was afraid it could be the beginning of living his worst nightmare if he didn’t! Perhaps everything actually became a reality if he didn't apologise!?

Thus, because he truly was afraid of this nightmare, he decided to really do something about it. It took all the courage he could muster to ring the bell of the Polkisses door one evening, almost a week after he had punched his friend. Thankfully Piers was feeling rather gloomy about it all as well, so the two of them shook hands and forgot the whole thing. Then they even celebrated their renewed friendship with bullying some young children into crying for their mommy. Except, due to his new experience Dudley did not find it as amusing as he had done before, therefore he told Piers that perhaps he should start concentrating on boxing in the ring only, from then on. Piers told Dudley that he would always have him at his side cheering him on. Dudley felt deeply grateful for that support. The two of them decided they would have to grow up some day, and might as well give that a go from then on. As long as Dudley had his best friend in the world back at his side again he very much hoped he could make the nightmare fade away eventually.

Dudley never did forget the Dementor attack though. He kept on having nightmares about it, and could not shake it off as easily as he had anticipated. It felt like those images had festered in his soul forever. For the rest of his life he would still relive that horrible night and those few deadly minutes. Nevertheless, he kept on with boxing at school. He won himself boxing titles, and made his parents and friends proud. He even lost some weight, as he gained muscles. This gave him some confidence that perhaps he might be able to defend himself better in the future if he ever were to meet with them again.

 


	6. Kings Cross

Dudleys parents usually picked Dudley up at Kings Cross the very same day that they picked up Harry. The two of them returned from their seperate schools at approximately the same time. Otherwise they probably would not have bothered with picking up Harry at all. Dudley arrived at Kings Cross from Smeltings about an hour before Harry did, and this gave the Dursleys plenty of time to greet their lovely Dudders and favour him with a treat before Harry arrived. He was usually taken to a bakery at the station-house and given whatever he wanted from the counter. After they had eaten their pastry, drunk their hot chocolate and caught up with eachothers news, they went back to the incoming trains and waited for Harry to arrive. 

 

Dudley remembered that Harry had talked about a platform called Nine and three quarters when he was going away to his school in his very first year. They had all laughed at him back then and left him to it. However, it seemed like there actually was a train somewhere around the station to take him to his school after all. Dudley had been very curious about it all and by bullying his mother into telling him she finally caved and told him everything she apparently knew about it, wich was almost nothing. Petunia had only told him that sometimes one simply had to be magical like her freaky little sister had been to notice it. She had said that they would have to walk through a secret passage in a wall or something like that. Petunia had never been able to follow her sister all the way to the train when she was a little girl.Her sister Lily had been in company of that Severus boy and he and his mother had taken her to the train together with Petunias father. Her father had not told Petunia anything about it because he knew she was a little jealous of her sister about the whole thing. Thereforehe had felt that it was kinder not to tell her anything at all.

 

Allthough, all of this only made Dudley guessing that Harry would turn up at either platform nine or ten.Dudley was still rather eager to find out exactly where that was. Nevertheless, he had always managed to hide this curiosity about it from his parents. He knew they would not be too impressed with him if he showed any kind of interest regarding Harry. The problem was that Dudley never seemed to manage to figure out where his cousin was supposed to get off his train. Besides he didnot wantHarry to think he was interested in his life at all, so naturally he never asked him about any of it. Not that Harry would ever tell Dudley anyway. Still Dudley secretely was a little curious about how those things really worked out.

 

His parents however, was quite rigid on everything to do with the magical world, and had decided it was simply abnormal and dangerous. Dudley did not ask his parents much about any of it anymore, because they always prided themselves in Dudley not beeing a freak like Harry. His cousin and his cronies always seemedto emerge spookily out of thin air somehow, and to Dudleys annoyance he could not see which of the trains he possibly could have stepped out of. Because one train was standing on the side of platform nine, it had arrived some time ago and was nearly empty. The train at platform ten was filling up and getting ready to leave the station when Harry and a whole bunch of school people seemed to be coming out of another train that had just arrived and was standing somewhere Dudley could not possibly see.

 

Dudley had actually been checking out the platform more closely one day when his own train had arrived quite earlier than planned. His parents had not arrived yet and he really wanted to see for himself if there were a staircaise from an underground or something like that, only he could not find anyting like that at all. He even tried to check if the wall separating the two platforms really was solid, or if he possible could get through it too. Dudley had really become rather downcast when he had not detected anything out of the ordinary.

 

Petunia was always dreading theese pick-ups of Harry. Because the station was always teeming with people carrying screeching owls, quarking frogs and squeeking rats everywhere. She did not think this was the sort of people she would like to be assosiated with at all. Besides she felt like everybody in the entire station knew that she was connected to that freakish world somehow. Consequently she kept turning her head left and right all the time looking for anybody she knew hoping she would not, until it made her neck sore.

 

Vernon were so embarrassed about Harry and theese peoples appearances he kept uttering snide remarks about them under his breath. Dudley quite agreed that they looked a little strange, still he also was a little curious about this whole lot. However, seeing as he had been a target of several wizards magic tricks a number of times he was also pretty scared of them. Therefore he kept staring at them, trying to figure out if all of them were dangerous and if they possibly were going to something horrifying towards him or not. He certainly did not at all feel like the bullying and boisterous young man he was back home. He was not aware of it himself, but he was cowering a little and actually hiding himself behind his parents as the crowd passed them.

 

At the end of Dudleys fifth year at Smeltings, the first part of their pick up procedure of him at Kings Cross went by as ususal. Up until when they were to fetch Harry. They had noticed a bunch of grown up wizards dressed in all sorts of funny clothes standing just about where the three of them usually waited for Harry. Dudley carefully looked at each and everyone of them in turn. There was a wide man in a bowler hat put jauntilly down on his headcovering one of his eyes, wearing an old and dusty travelling cloak. He also held a weird and omnious looking staff in his hand. His whole appearance was quite sinister somehow. Dudley certainly did not want anything to do with him for sure.

Then there wasa young woman with bubble gum pink hair, with torn up trousers anda purple rock band t-shirt on. There were a shabby looking pale fellow with hand-me-down threadbare clothes and grey tinges in his hair. There was a pair of red haired twins in some sort of greenish leather jackets. There was also a redhaired man and woman talking to eachother. Both of them was wearing quite oldfashioned- however, evidently sunday garments. Dudley knew that all of them were wizards because he actually recognized some of them. The red haired man was called mr Weasly or something like that. He and his two twin sons over there had came crashing down the Dursleys livingroom only two years ago, when one of the twins had dropped a sweet that Dudley unfortunately had picked up and tasted. This sweet had made his tounge swell like a python and he thought he was going to die for sure. The red haired man had managed to get rid of it in the end. Dudley could hardly remember anything of what actually had happened that day because he had almost been dead with fear. He remembered his mother and father beeing quite hysterical about it too. His mother had even tried to pull his enlargended tongue out of his mouth. While his father tried his best to kill "that blasted wizarding man". Mr Weasly finally had managed to cure Dudley from this huge tongue and then he had dissapeared right out of thin air afterwards. Dudley himself had fainted straight after. His parents had tried to make him believe he had only dreamt it all, however that only made things worse, so in the end they told him it had been true after all. Ever since that incident Dudley did not eat any sweets that he did not know very well of and he had bought from the shop himself, or if one of his parents gave it to him. It really was a rather traumatic episode that he thought he would never forget. He even sometimes had nightmares about it all.

 

The Dursleys kepta good distance from theese freaky people at the station. Except Dudley thought one of the twins had recognized them because he saw him nudge his brother and they wispered together and sniggered as they were peeking over. Dudley tried his best to ignore them. Allthough he kept stealing glances at them every now and then to make sure they really kept their distance too. Dudley made a note to himself to remember that he would not pick up anything that looked like sweets or anything like that if it appeared in front of him. Nor would he expose any part of his body to be hexed in any way.

 

Harry and his friends finally emerged from the train somewhere far away that he could not see as usual, and Dudleys parents got their worst fear confirmed. The group of people standing in front of them were indeed wizards and all of them greeted Harry as if he were a long lost son coming home from war or something. Vernon rolled his eyes at this but held his tounge, seeing as this lot quite outnumbered him and he did not want to make a scene if he could help it. No he´d just let them finish with Harry and then they´d be on their way home in his new company car.

Then ofcourse, the worst happened. That freaky lot seemed to want to come over and talk to them. Vernon heard that red haired man say something to the sinister looking man in a bowler hat. The man gave a curt nod and they all turned around and walked towards the Dursleys.

 

Vernon made himself swell up to become as large and intimidating as he could to protecthis wife and son. If theese people were going to take him on he would face them all standing as tall as possible. However, he was emmediately taken off guard when that red haired man called Weasly friendly greeted him as as if he were an aquaintance. Vernon spluttered something incomprehensible, but then he held his tongue. Unfortunately, he felt his face turn red. He had never been comfortable in akward situations like theese. So he compencated in stead by glaring at Mr Weasly and the others as if they were all mad or somehting. He did not like to be on eaqual terms with people like this, and to be adressed in a familiar way like this was definately not something he approved upon. 

 

Dudley felt himself shrink to a pulp where he stood, even though he really was twice the size of his mother whom he was trying to hide behind and thus failing immensley. It seemed to Dudley like they all were blaming his family for not caring properely for Harry during his childhood. However, his father seemed to keep up a decent sort ofdefence he thought. Allthough, to be honest, Dudley could not hear too much of what was said between them, because he was scared wittless just by standing in their presence. He shook all over and his legs felt like they were made out of jelly.It was all he could do to barely stand up straight. His eyes kept darting from one wizard to the other to see if any of them wasgoing to do any sort of magic towards him at all. Thankfully they did not seem to pay him too much attention. Exept from the twins ofcourse, they really kept shooting glances at him more often than he liked. He was definately sure they were up to no good with him. The wizard wearing the bowler hat was the most aggressive of them all, Dudley felt. He said that they had been misstreating Harry during his entire life, and he warned them that the whole gang of them would show up at no 4 Privet Drive to check on Harry if they did not hear from him every third day.

 

Vernon was quite indignant about all of this, allthough he dared not reveal too much of his feelings to this lot. They were nothing to him, however he had been encountering with wizards before and it had never been any pleasant at all. Besides, he always felt like he came up short with them somehow. Nevertheless, Vernons fury and indignation swelled in him and he finally dared to ask the man with the bowler hat if he actually was threatening him. The man smirked and confirmed that indeed he was. Mr Dursley then asked him if he looked like he was a man who could be intimidated. Where as the broad man lifted his bowler hat and revealled a horrific electric blue eye as big as a golf ball and by the look of Vernons face, once more confirmed that he did.

 

All the Dursleys starteled at the sight of his electric blue eye. That was just not normal! Dudley had whimpered and cowered even more behind his mother. They all had leaped away from him in unison. Unfortunately Vernon crashed hard into a luggage trolley behind him, and almost fell over. He hated to feel clumsy or inadequate in any way infront of theese people. Then again he did not have anything he could defend himself with towards them. If they only had been normal people he would have yelled something abusive to them. However he did not dare to do anything of the sort to them since they all had powers he did not know anything about. He did not want his family to suffer. It always had been his darling son whom had ended up beeing punished by them and he would not have any of that from them again. Especially not out in public like this. No, he´d better hold his tongue just for now, and agree to everything this filthy lot had suggested.

 

Petunia too whimpered when she saw that freakishly abnormal eye. She felt flustered and ashamed of the whole situation, thinking of what the neighbours would say if anybody she knew noticed them now or if any of theese people came walking up the street to knock on their front door. And that young woman with the bubblegum pink hair was so utterly offensive simply by the way she looked that Petunia had to close her eyes and pretend that she did not exist. If anybody she knew saw her in such a company she would be mortified. She only wanted to get out of the station and get as quick as she could back into their car and get home. She certainly did not want any of them visiting them back at Privet Drive for the life of her.

 

Finally Harry said his goodbye to them all and set out through the front doors. The Dursleys were walking as fast as they all could possibly manage behind him. They all wanted to put as much distance between themselves and theese freaks in the shortest amount of time.

 

Harry was probably quite satisfied with the whole situation, Vernon thought. That only made him think up things he dearly would like to abuse him with. He desperately wanted to tell Harry off for all of it during their car ride home, except he honestly did not dare to. What if he told that lot about what he had said, and they hexed his whole family into bits. Besides, it seemed like Harry was drifting off far away deep in his thoughts somewhere and he also acted as if nothing unusual at all had happened back there at the station, Vernon thought. This truly vexed him even more, however he figured he would have to wait to release his resentment until a time Harry would not be in such a threatening position. Therefore Vernon kept muttering angrily to himself about the days encounter all their journey home. 

 

Dudley was simply too shocked about it all to even dare open his mouth. However he made sure there was a decent kind of distance between him an Harry in the car. His new boxing gloves was lyinig on the seat between them, and he was ready to put them on if he needed to. Dudley had never met this many wizards at once before. He found them all quite intimidating. He kept comparing them to the Dementor attack he had survived almost a year ago, and for a second he was not sure wich was the worst. Well, he knew which one had been the worst, nothing really bad had actually happened just now. They had only been talking to them. Even though he did not feel any good about himself he at least had not been hexed, nor had anything horribe happened to him this time. He kept wondering to himself if all of them were like this lot.If so then he figured it was simply safest for him to keep away from them all together.

For some reason or other Dudley started to see flashes of that horrible nightmare of his in his head all the way home, wich almost made him forget about their encounter with those wizards just then. When they arrived at no 4 Privet Drive Dudley did not think about them at all. He was only thinking about himself and how bad he would feel if he was left alone in the world.

 

Petunia only wanted to get home and get herself cleaned up. She felt condemned somehow, these oddballs simply were not dressed well enough for her liking. In a way she confused their dressing style for not beeing clean too, and in her inner eye they all were kind of hobos from the streets. She remembered that awful boy her sister Lilly used to hang with during the summer holidays. He used to not care much about beeing clean either, more particularly had he always had incredible greasy hair, she remembered. She suddenly remembered that he also used to wear all sorts off weird type of clothes put together. In addition, she remembered that he had always been awfully rude to her. Perhaps none of theese wizarding folks knew how to conduct themselves amongst ordinary people, nor dress properely at all. Well, she and her family would simply make sure Harry was reasonally happy and that he was allowed to use that horrific bird of his to send his letters. Because she certainly did not want any of those people to show up at Privet Drive for sure. She definately did not want to recieve another of those crimson letters ever again!


	7. Petunias Penpal

It was an ordinary summer evening at the Dursleys, leading up to Dudleys sixt year at Smeltings, when he and his parents had gone through their usual evening routine, putting on their night things and having a late snack before they turned in. Dudley and his father was watching a documentary about boxing-champions on TV, and Petunia had started her usual cleaning of the kitchen. They had not seen Harry for the whole course of the evening, but they knew he were upstairs in his bedroom. This was how the Dursleys liked to spend their evenings together the best. Harry staying out of the way and peace and quiet filling the house in general. 

This evening however, was about to become anything but ordinary for the Dursleys.  Only one short minute after the clock had chimed eleven the doorbell was ringing. Vernon swore loudly as he went to open the door with a «who on earth would come calling at this hour?!»

On their doorstep stood a tall, rather old but vigorous man, wearing half-moon spectacles and a rather strange set of clothes in Vernon’s opinion. He wore a long black travelling cloak and a pointy hat. There were no mistake in it, this man certainly was a wizard. Vernon Dursley, quite dumbstruck, was simply gaping at him. Finally, it had happened. His worst fear had occurred. A fully-grown and powerful wizard was standing on his doorstep. The wizard introduced himself as Professor Dumbledore. Vernon vaguely found his name somewhat familiar, although he was still too stunned by this man’s appearance to say anything at all. 

Harry came rushing downstairs clearly acquainted with the man and obviously expecting him. Vernon wondered if Harry had deliberately omitted to tell them he was expected just to vex him. Vernon, even though he was deeply annoyed, felt a strong intimidation emitting from this tall, quiet old man, more so than any of the other wizards he had been so unfortunate to have met before in his life. Something about him made it quite clear that he was not to be trifled with. This Dumbledore person invited himself into the house as if nothing could stop him. He kept an easy and calm tone in his voice, however somehow he managed to get his way in every matter, Vernon felt. 

Petunia too was quite astonished when she understood who had entered her house. That very same Professor Dumbledore who had turned down her letter of plea all those years ago. The very same person who had told her to take Harry in to her family and raise him up, and who somehow would know if anything bad happened to him. She also knew he was the one who had sent her those crimson letters she dreaded so much. She did not need to see his signature to tell who was behind that slanting writing on the envelopes. She was deeply afraid he would mention anything about that first red envelope she had received in the car all those years ago, since she had not even told Vernon about it. The Professor nodded in her direction and did hint that the two of them had corresponded, however thankfully, he did not elaborate on the matter. Nevertheless, she dearly hoped nobody would ask her about it or understand any more than he had let on by it. Not even Vernon knew about those old little secrets of hers. Luckily there seemed to be more pressing matters at hand this time around, and Petunias secrets was safe, for now at least.

Dudley poor thing nearly pissed his pants when Professor Dumbledore entered the living room. He too could clearly see that this was a proper wizard and a powerful one at that. Everything about this mans being emitted power and magic. Dumbledore had somehow made all of the Dursleys sit down on their coach and Dudley wondered how on earth he had managed that. He even conjured up some glasses, poured something yellowish into them, and made the glasses float towards them. Dudley could see that Harry was drinking it, therefore it probably was not dangerous at all. The problem was that the Dursley family had encountered with other wizards who had made all theese threatening gestures towards them. They all had good reasons to mistrust anything magical. Dudley had made a promise to himself never to taste anything he did not know or that might be magical, and this certainly qualified as one of them.  

They all too clearly remembered that their living room had been blown into bits once, and on that encounter Dudley had landed himself with an enormous tongue. Therefore, their scepticism towards any Wizard, especially one whom was offering them some magical liquor, was huge. Besides they all felt that this man also was rather rude towards them all, making those ruddy magical glasses nudging their heads trying to force them to accept the drink. The more persistent the glasses acted, the more stubborn the Dursleys became.

As all of this went on, Harry and that Professor Dumbledore -person kept talking to each other as if nothing strange or abnormal was going on in the room. The Dursleys heard that Harrys godfather had died, which explained a lot of Harrys low mood during the summer. 

Vernon also heard this wizard say that Harry had inherited a whole lot of money and an entire house in London. Vernon took quite some interest in this house. If there existed any kind of money he could possibly be able to squeeze out of Harry, he certainly would try to get his hands on them. However, as Harry and the old wizard kept talking about the house, it sounded as if it was not safe to live in for some reason or other. Besides, it obviously would be filled with magic and all sorts of dangerous things. In addition to this, Harry did not seem too keen on it himself, so that must mean that it was in a poor condition or something. Perhaps the house had been decaying for years, therefore Vernon dropped any speculation on how he would get his hands on any money from selling Harrys house.

As the minutes passed and the two wizards kept talking to each other those ruddy glasses had started to jump up and down on top of the Dursleys heads and the contents was flying everywhere.

Petunia gave little whimps every time it hit her head, and she really wanted to scream and shout at the man for abusing them so clearly in their own home to stop it at once. She knew her husband certainly would not have put up with anything like this with anybody but a wizard this powerful. Her own thoughts kept darting back to that awful Severus Snape boy she had met as a girl. He had been a powerful wizard. She had already known that back then. He too had been rude towards her, and had forced her to leave him and her sister alone when she had wanted to join them.

Finally, Vernon lost his temper with this nonsense and told the old man to get the glasses off of his family. That Dumbledore person even was rude enough to retort him that it would have been better manners simply to accept them and to drink it. Well that was not going to happen thank you very much!! Vernon would not have anybody bully his family into such nonsense. Of course he did not utter any of these thoughts out loud. However he was thinking them for sure, he felt quite resentful towards this old man, and he just wanted him to leave his house and his family alone. He was convinced something bad was going to happen to his family before the visit was over.

After they had talked about Harrys house, Dumbledore mentioned another thing Harry had inherited. The Wizard flicked his wand and then with a loud crack there suddenly appeared the ugliest, skinniest creature the Dursleys had ever seen. Dudley panicked completely, and threw both his feet up as far he could get them into the air. He did not want this thing, whatever it was, to touch him. He was always sure he would be the target of any wizard, and looking at his history one simply could not blame him.

His mother had screamed quite as hard and ear splitting as they had ever heard her done before. She found this creature completely appalling and as dirty as she had ever seen anybody in her entire life. She mistook it for an ugly, skinny and dirty child at first, but then it opened its mouth, and she heard a croaking voice of an old man. It all truly disgusted her to the bone. This thing did not even seem to be human at all when she took a closer look at it. It was immensly dirty and almost half naked, wearing something she thought might have been a tea towel once. In addition, such a bad temper there was on him. He seemed to be as cross and stubborn as anything she had ever known in her life, and that was saying something being a parent to Dudley Dursely. Then finally, Harry shouted at him to shut up, and the silent tantrum that followed was almost pitiable Petunia thought. Nevertheless, she was still too disgusted and put out with any of it to say or feel anything much about anything right then. Professor Dumbledore then suggested Harry to move him to that Hogwarts School, and the creature called Kreacher disappeared into thin air with a loud crack. Petunia somehow thought she had heard cracks like that before sometimes, but could not remember whenever that could have been. Besides, she was more taken with this moment and scared to death of what was going to happen next to be bothered much with it at the time. In addition, she was wondering if that dirty little thing really had disappeared, or if he actually was hiding somewhere in the house invisible to them or something like that. 

After a while, Harry and the old man seemed to have all matters cleared, and Professor Dumbledore asked if Harry had packed his trunk yet. Harry admitted he had not quite finished, and ran off upstairs to pack the rest of his stuff, and the Dursleys was left in the living room with this Dumbledore person. He tried to start a conversation as he complimented Petunia on the house. However, Vernon cut him off telling him not to dare speak to his wife or son. Dumbledore then had stared at Vernon with his piercing blue eyes, as if he was scanning Vernons brain or something making it quite clear that he was not in charge at the moment. That single stare also made it quite clear to even Vernon that he was not to try any rude business with this man, and Vernon kept his silence after that. Nobody talked to each other, and the Dursleys felt they were enduring a totally embarrassing silence instead. 

However, that Professor Dumbledore person simply seemed to not be embarrassed about the situation at all. He was humming on a tune that Petunia recognized as something Lilly used to sing all the time back in the days. The sound of it and the memory of her sister was such a surprise to her that it actually made her feel a little sad. This was the first time in about twenty years she had heard that song and it made Petunia relive feelings she had oppressed for such a long time. Her love for her sister and her parents swelled in her like a balloon. The sadness the song brought with her made her a little less afraid of this Dumbledore person in a way. Simply because she felt he had brought something form her past with him. Of course, she would never tell anyone about these feelings she had just felt. Except that Dumbledore person met her eyes once or twice, and perhaps he understood her somehow. He even blinked at her quite discreetly, as if the two of them shared a little secret together.  Thankfully, he did not say anything at all about either the song or whatever letters had been passing betwen them in the past. Petunia knew her husband was so full of resentment towards this man that she was pleased nothing more happened. 

It seemed like it was taking Harry a whole year to pack his trunk, even though it only took him like ten minutes. Finally, he was ready and came hurrying downstairs with his trunk. By now all the Dursleys wanted them both to leave the house. However, before they left, Dumbledore gave them a final speech. He blamed Petunia and Vernon for not having cared for Harry as he had asked them to all those years ago. He said that Harry had only known neglect and misery from them all. In spite of this, Dumbledore wanted them to let Harry come back to Privet Drive one final summer, to complete a powerful protection set for him against that Voldemort person. Then Dumbledore said something that completely confounded both Dudley and his parents. He told them that Harry had at least escaped the appalling damage his parents had inflicted upon their own son. His parents looked at Dudley as if he was a stranger at this statement. Obviously none of his parents either could figure out what he had meant by that. 

After this, Harry and Dumbledore left Privet Drive. The Dursleys all felt relieved that the visit was over. Vernon kept pacing the living room up and down fuming with indignation towards the old man. He kept shouting out angry retorts that he had been keeping in for the last hour. Several name-callings occurred as he kept tearing at his moustache. He kept shooting questions out in the air willing the room to answer him what exactly Dumbledore had meant by calling Dudley appalling. He was a normal healthy boy with normal behaviour and with many good friends. He himself was not to be bullied by an old oddball in weird clothes from that stupid wizarding world of Harrys. He kept blaming Harry for everything. He blamed him for bringing this stupid old man into his house, and if he could have the chance he would somehow find a way to punish Harry for the impertinence of it all.

Petunia immediately filled a bucket with hot water and soap and started to scrub down their entire living room. Especially the spot where that awful creature had been lying in a silent tantrum. She cleaned the walls around the couch to make sure that the liquor that had been jumping up and down their heads was properly cleared away. Only she could not find any spots of it anywhere. Nor was it in her or anyone else’s hair, which she thought was odd. She was sure the walls must have been filled with it. However she simply could not find any trace of anything out of the ordinary. He simply must have cleaned it all up when he had made the glasses disappear. She had seen her sister Lily do things like that when she had become a teenager at home. Still, Petunia cleaned the walls over and over again. She felt condemned somehow, she felt like something very dirty and awful had been inside her precious house. The very thought of that dirty and disgusting creature the old man had brought with him made her clean the spot on the floor even one more time. After she had finished with the living room, she continued into the kitchen where she had been disrupted. She felt she simply could not stop cleaning the house. 

Some hours later when both Vernon and Dudley had gone to bed, she sat herself down on a kitchen chair, exhausted. Then all of a sudden, she started to cry for some reason. She expected it was because she was so tired from all the cleaning. Except then she remembered Lily’s song, and she knew it was the memory of her sisters presence in the room some hours ago that had made her feel so sad. She sat there for half an hour crying to herself and remembering her sister. It was as if this Dumbledore person deliberately wanted her to remember Lily by humming on that exact tune. That certainly had worked, she thought, drying her eyes off and getting on her feet again. She had decided it was enough already. Then she walked upstairs and went to bed herself. 

Dudley was still shocked about the whole visit for a long time. At first when Harry and that Professor had left them, he was sitting in the living room in the exact spot he had been sitting in when he had been called abused by his parents from that tall old man. Only his father was disturbing his thoughts and his mother only wanted to clean the place down so he left them to it and went upstairs. He was sitting in his bed as he kept pondering about the man’s words all through the night. What on earth did he mean? Did he mean that he had been mistreated in any way? How could that be? Would he possibly have anything to complain about regarding his parents? He had always just got what he had wanted from them. He always felt that he had them wrapped around his finger. Whatever could be the meaning of his words? 

Then Dudley suddenly started to remember this nightmare when he had been attacked by those Dementors. He remembered that his worst fear in life was to be living Harrys life, as if he was an outcast. Dudley had always been supported in everything he did. He knew that his parents sometimes gave him credit for things he knew he was not particularly good at. Like his homework for instance. His parents was the only ones in the world who did not mind if he did not do very well at school. Well, some of his friends was not very bookish either, and he liked to stick with friends who was somewhat as lousy as himself at school. He could not relate to people who did well at school because they simply was different from him. Could anything of theese things be something this Dumbledore person meant? Could it be a snide remark on his parents’ upbringing of him in comparison to what they had done to Harry? Dudley actually felt bad about it for quite some time. 

The next day he sat his mother down at the kitchen when his father was not there and asked her a little about it. She, of course, humoured him and comforted him saying that nobody had ever died of too much love anyway! Besides that oddball probably did not know anything about the upbringing of children, that he probably did not have any kids of his own so he probably would not know what he was talking about at all. Somehow, Dudley was not quite satisfied with his mothers answers, she was obviously trying to make herself feel good about it too. Therefore, Dudely left her, pretending to feel better and went to see his best friend Piers instead. Not to discuss the matter however, simply trying to forget about the whole thing altogether. 

 


	8. The Departure

After having survived the Dementor attack a couple of years earlier, Dudley found himself wanting to treat Harry a little more like a normal person. Or, as normal he could possibly behave towards him without anybody suspecting anything odd. This was going to be the last summer that they ever spent together at Privet Drive. Dudley really wanted to say sorry or thank you, or something along that line, for rescuing him from the Dementors and for treating him badly through all those years. However, Harry mostly liked to keep to himself when he stayed at Privet Drive. Either he was outside on a walk somewhere away from the family. Or if he actually were in the house, he usually kept to his room. Dudley did not know how to approach him without annoying him so he stayed out of his way most of the time. Dudley had after all treated him with contempt all through his life. So why should Harry accept any sort of apology from him now? Besides, he was a wizard, and even though Dudley now knew that Harry was not allowed to do magic outside of his school, he still did not trust that he wouldn´t do it anyway somehow.

Dudley did not feel like being on the receiving end of Harry Potter’s wrath in any case. Dudley was afraid of his cousin in a way he just could not explain to himself. Perhaps it was because of everything Dudley had put him through during the years, and his fear of Harry’s horrible revenge. Now Dudley had decided he would like them to have some sort of a reconciliation, so that he could finally get some peace of mind that Harry would not hunt him down later or something. He had seen that kind of revenge on film many times. He therefore kept thinking up ideas on how to show his gratitude without being too obvious. The idea he went with in the end was simply to make Harry a nice cup of tea. He surely would not refuse to that, Dudley thought. That would not be too much out of the ordinary, it would rather be a kind gesture on his part he felt.

Anyhow, Dudley chickened out the very moment he was going to knock on Harrys bedroom-door and hand him the cup of tea he had made for him. Instead, he placed it on the floor right outside of his door. Harry had been inside there all morning after all, surely he was bound to emerge soon. He would probably be pleased to find a nice cup of tea brought to him and then he could be taking a break from whatever it was he was doing in there. Dudley decided to knock softly on Harrys door before he would leave it there. However he was not quite sure Harry had heard his knock, because it sounded as if he had thrown something hard into the bin at that exact moment. Right after Dudley had left the tea outside his door, he went downstairs again and walked outside into the garden. He did not want any kind of awkward moment arising when Harry saw it. In Dudleys imagination Harry would probably come rushing downstairs to thank him for it, recognizing it as a nice gesture, and understanding that Dudley wanted to talk to him. Dudley did not want to express his regrets or say any of his thanks to Harry in front of his parents, therefore he waited in the garden for him.

Alas, somehow Dudley’s great master plan did not quite work out as he had anticipated. Dudley understood after a while that it probably was not that good of an idea after all, and he wondered if he perhaps should have written him a thank you-note instead. He only felt that it would be too corny and childish. Besides, he had never been any good with words in his entire life, he was better with his fists. Now, he would have to think of a different strategy to show his gratitude towards Harry instead.

Before Dudley had managed to come up with another brilliant idea however, the time had come for his family to abandon his childhood home. Just as soon as his father could seem to make up his mind about it anyway.

Vernon had been arguing with Harry about it every day for the last couple of weeks. Only when Dudley had learned that there were now probably hundreds or thousands of Dementors out there, and that Voldemort person might be capturing him and his family to hold them hostages and torture them all, he spoke up, told his father that he would agree to Harrys plan, and the whole matter suddenly was settled.  Dudley thought that if this dangerous person was anything like those horrid Dementors he did not even want to be in this part of the country if they came around in search of them. He still felt all scared witless from that Dementor attack and he had no desire at all to relive the horror of it if he could help it.

They were to be going away with some of those Order people Harry had been talking about, a man and a woman. Dudley did not know anything about them, except that they belonged to the magical world. Even though he was afraid of the very thought of spending any time with magical people at all, Dudley somehow felt he trusted Harry in this matter at least. Besides, Harry was going to come with them, and that made it somewhat more okay, or at least that was what Dudley had imagined his cousin was going to do. Dudley was the only one in his family, besides Harry of course, who knew that his cousin had truly saved his life from the Dementor attack back then. Ever since that horrible night, Dudley had started to see Harry in a different light. He now believed that he really did not want him and his family to suffer any major harm. How Harry managed to be so big-hearted about it he could not comprehend. Ofcourse Dudley still was not a hundred percent sure it was not an ambush of sorts from him and his friends. However, he really needed to believe in his cousin when he urged them to take cover. He knew Harry did not like the Dursleys very much, however he obviously cared enough to keep them safe and sound. 

Besides, they had been advised to go under cover by the Prime Ministers own bodyguard, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and that was really the heaviest weighing reassurance to them of all. He had actually come around their house to visit them in person. Disregarding that he had brought that horrible red headed man, mr Weasley with him, whom they all knew was a wizard, they were quite pleased to shake hands with this bodyguard that they all had watched on television so many times over the past months. Mr Shacklebolts appearance and manners were so utterly convincing to them that Vernon had immediately wanted him to be their personal guard. However that was not going to work since he was guarding the Minster allready. Vernon had been told by Harry that he too were a wizard, however Vernon hardly believed in that since he had appeared to be quite a normal person, both on tv and that time when he had been visiting them. 

The Dursleys were all rather impressed that somebody from the Prime Ministers office felt it this necessary to protect their family. Nobody else in their street had ever been visited by the Prime Ministers bodyguard in person before, and if anyone from no10 Downing Street said this was in their best interest, Dudley and his father certainly would yield. They both had huge faith in the Prime Minister sitting. In addition, it made them all feel quite special, getting direct advice from no10 Downing Street´s office. Not many families in Little Whinging had been that privileged. Only, it was a pity that they could not tell all of their neighbours about it, since they were to go in hiding, and the less people in Privet Drive knew about it the better, mr Shackelbolt had told them.

Finally, the departing was to take place and the two members of the Order had arrived. The man, Dedalus Diggle seemed to be quite a chatty man. He wore a mauve top hat, a cinnamon coloured old-fashioned coat with dark chocolate velvet wide collar and sleeves. He had a wide matching belt around his waist. His navy-blue trousers did not quite reach his ankles, and revealed his mint green socks and his two-toned wingtip shoes. He could almost go for an old-fashioned but somewhat fashionable man if he did not have another layer of jacket underneath his coat. What he quite visibly wore underneath his coat was a screamingly orange sports jacket. That whole effect somehow made him look a little dotty altogether. He did not seem to notice that Dudleys entire family were shocked and a little apprehensive towards his appearance.

The witch, Hestia Jones, was wearing so many different layers of clothes on top of each other that it was difficult to tell her true size. She had wide layers upon wide layers of different colours and materials, and it almost looked like she wore all kinds of different many-coloured blankets with wholes cut out in the middle for her head to fit in. To top it off she wore flat neon-pink plastic bathing-shoes on her feet, and the tiniest pointy black witches’ hat on top of her rather bushy dark shoulder-length hair. She however, noticed the Dursleys apprehension and was a little more tactful towards them than her friend was. She therefore made sure they did not linger on their doorstep when they arrived, but entered the hallway quickly enough and closed the door behind her.

Nevertheless, when the parting took place she was clearly shocked that Harry and his relations did not say their goodbyes to him sobbing and in tears. That was when Dudley realized that Harry actually was not coming with the rest of them into hiding, he was going away with his friends someplace else. At this point Dudley almost panicked, not having been able to pluck up the courage and say something nice to his cousin. Finally, he just plunged into it and the only thing he managed to say was that he didn´t think that Harry was a waste of space, after his cousin had pointed out that his entire family thought he, Harry, were nothing. Dudley was utterly ashamed to furiously blush as he had finally said  his words out loud. Nevertheless, at least Dudley knew that he meant it. Harry seemed quite shocked, however he thanked him for it anyway, and Dudley felt like saying something he had been thinking ever since the Dementor attack. Although all he could manage was to mumble ”you saved my life”. Still he would have wanted to say something more about the case, but it was all too awkward, and he didn´t want to say it in front of all these people, even though his own mother was one of them. Therefore, after a few feeble attempt at opening and closing his mouth again he kept looking down on his own shoes as he kept his tongue, feeling all hot in the face and uncertain of what he was going to say. There were so much he coud have said. But as he was in the presence of a witch and a wizard in addition to Harry there were a big chance for him to be hexed if he said something wrong.

His mother, of course, had to have one of her hugging and crying seizures over him that very moment. Having kittens over him for expressing his feelings towards Harry. She did not understand that it was thanks to Harry that he was still alive. Even though Harry said it was his soul the Dementors wanted, he figured it would be a pretty bleak life to be living if he was going to do it without his soul, whatever that was. Dudley thought it looked like Harry understood that he really wanted to thank him for the gesture. However, thankfully, he did not press the matter and make the situation even more excruciatingly embarrassing for him than it already was.

All of a sudden, his father had entered the room again, and impatiently told them all to hurry up. The departure finally was a fact. Dudley got the impression that the Order people really looked up to Harry as a proper hero. This became obvious when the wizard said to Harry as they said their goodbyes that ”The hopes of the wizarding world rest upon your shoulders”. And the witch also wished him well with the words ”Our thoughts go with you”. As if Harry might not survive from a deadly fight or something. This truly made an impact on Dudley, and somehow he really needed to express his wishing well to Harry before he left. It was now or never he felt. Even though he did not find any words at the moment he simply held out his hand and shook Harrys. To Harrys great astonishment of course. After that Dudley left the room feeling gloomy. Not just because he possibly never would see his childhood home again, but also that he might never see his only cousin again. Feeling that this might even be the very last time Dudley saw him alive.  Dudley had never been the most sentimental person on earth. Although Harry had always just been there as a weird part of his family after all.After that Dudley left the house and went inside the car as he realized he had a big lump in his throat and felt his tears actually pressing on behind his eyelids. His only thought after that was; let us just get this over with.

To Petunias great astonishment she found herself alone in their livingroom together with Harry for a short moment. She had been so distracted that her darling son was behaving so mature towards Harry in his farewell that she had not noticed that everyone else suddenly had left the room. She had been burying her face in a handkerchief stemming the flood of tears pouring out of her. She knew that she had been touched by the notion her son had showed towards his cousin. However she felt like there were something else bothering her to make her feel this gloomy. Perhaps she actually had some small feelings regarding her nephew after all? She had nonetheless been the only blood relative he had known his entire life, and now the two of them were about to take their leaves, perhaps forever. Petunia had been thinking over the last four weeks when all of this parting from eachother had been planned, that she might have a little talk to her nephew alone about his mother and his Evans grandparents. Just so that she possibly could make him understand how things had been for her. However, she did not know exactly what she was going to tell him since she had been rather resentful towards Lily and all of her magic. In addition she had felt rather neglected by her own mother and ashamed of her father, so she was not sure there really was anytihng much to tell him. As the days turned into weeks and the departure was upon her before she had summoned the courage to say anything, she now had given up on the idea. Except there she was, standing alone in their livingroom with Harry for the first time in years. As she had automaticly said her goodbyes to him and was about to leave the room she stopped in her tracks and hesitated for a moment. Perhaps she could tell him that she cared for him or that he should take care of himself. She knew that this might be the last time she would ever see Harry in her entire life and all of it felt a little strange to her.She looked straight into his eyes on the verge of speach, but then she felt a big lump in her throat and she knew she could not do it after all. Courage had failed her again. Instead she jerked her head and hurried out of the house and into the car. 

Before they all knew it everybody were inside the car and they were ready to leave. Dudelys father turned the engine on and they were off. Dudley turned his head around as they drove out of the driveway to see if he would see his cousin for one last time, but Harry was already inside the house and had closed the door behind him. All of this made Dudley feel strangely empty inside, and before he knew it he felt his tears dripple silently down the front of his leather jacket.

However, after about five minutes of feeling gloomy or so, Dudley started realizing that he himself actually were going on quite an adventure, and that somehow lifted his spirits. He stopped thinking so much about his cousin and started focusing on where ever he was heading with theese two strange people. Hestia Jones was sitting in the front seat of Vernons new company-car giving him directions on where to go. The wizard called Dedalus Diggle was sitting in the back seat between Dudley and his mother. They were heading further and further out on the countryside and none of the Dursleys knew where they were going, nor did they dare to ask them. Finally, Vernon bursting with curiosity and indignation, asked the woman if she could please tell him where they were taking them. However the only reply he received was that they would know soon enough and the less they knew beforehand the better, if something were going to go wrong. It was all done for their own safety she said. Dudley had seen action films before where people were taken into Witness Protection Programmes and that must have felt exactly like this. Those people did not know where they were going either, and he felt himself trembling all over his body with fear and a little excitement. All of his sad feelings about leaving Harry behind were now gone from his mind.

The Dursleys and the two Order members drove for about fifteen minutes on the motorway when they reached a runned down shed next to the road, and Hestia Jones told Vernon to pull over and park the car inside of it. Vernon started to object, telling her that this car was brand new, and he certainly did not want to scratch it. He said he could park the car next to the shed if she liked but he was not scratching his car from any rubbish inside that shack, thank you very much!

Then Hestia firmly told him that it were of outmost importance for him to simply obey, and he needed to do so rather soon, because they obviously was in something of a hurry, therefore she had no time to argue the matter with him. She assured him there were nothing inside the shed that would damage his car at all. Then she told him this was what he needed to do to keep his family safe, and they could do it with his cooperation or without it. Adding that she would rather carry out this mission with his and his family’s consent and without force. She then gave Vernon a rather stern look and he simply obeyed. He did not want to be turned into a turnip on the very first hour of their acquaintance. Vernon parked the car in the shed, looked at her and said, "Now what?" As if he reluctantly was a part of some idiotic prank of hers.

They were all instructed to sit tight inside the car and was not allowed to leave it even to take a little wiz around the corner. Dudley thought it was all a little strange, however he obeyed as there after all was a wizard sitting between him and his mother. They sat there for what felt like an hour, only it probably was just a couple of minutes or so. However, nobody spoke and that made the minutes seem to stretch much longer than they actually did. Dedalus had brought out his gigantic pocket watch again. Dudley could not help himself but kept staring at it as if expecting it to start shouting out loud again. This time he had the chance to get a proper look at it. He could quite clearly see that it did not look anything like a normal watch at all. It had twelve handles and had stars around the circle instead of numbers like a normal watch would have. Dudley could not make anything out of it at all, and felt a little apprehensive towards it. He feared that it might explode or grab him or something weird.

Then, out of nowhere, Dedalus loudly declaired that it was time, and told them to hold on tight to something as he slipped his watch back into his pocket. That made Dudleys mind switch back to the car in the shed. Dudley wondered, "Time for what?" Then all of a sudden, he felt a weird sensation behind his navel, as if someone had put an invisible hook inside of his bellybutton. Then he became all giddy and weightless. He could not hold his tongue anymore and screamed out as loud as he could. He also could feel his already pressing bladder empty. The whole weightless sensation lasted only for a short minute, and then he felt himself fall back into his car-seat again. The next thing Dudley knew, he was vomiting all over his father’s new company car. His mother screamed too, and she fell all into hysterics. The whole car seemed to have been weightless together with them. His father reacted by shouting and yelling from the top of his lungs, punching anything he could reach. Screaming out loud that he had had enough nonsense for one day, and that he certainly had changed his mind about the whole thing. He did not want any of this and he would much rather take his family to Majorca or something. He was quite red in the face, like a red-hot chilli pepper about to explode. Petunia were chalk white with shock, and Dudleys face were absolutely green as if he was sea-sick or something.

The witch and wizard acted as though this was a totally normal reaction quite expected from all of them, as the man calmly wiped off all Dudleys puke and urine with a swipe of his wand. The witch handed Petunia a paper bag to breathe into which eventually seemed to calm her down. However, they let Vernon simply yell until he finished on his own.

By the time he was done, he had threatened them with the police, that he would kill them himself that very instant if he only had a gun, he told them both to get the heck out of his car, and so forth. Vernons face had been contorted in wrath and he kept spitting as his words flew out of his mouth. The order members was still as calm as ever. The only thing that happened after he had calmed down sufficiently, was that Hestia quietly told him that Majorca certainly was not a safe place for him and his family at all right now, because that would probably be the first place the dark wizards would be searching for them.

As Dudley came around to not feel all so queasy anymore, he really had to admire the two of them for managing to keep their calm through all of that havoc.

 


	9. The Bee Hive

After everybody had calmed down sufficiently, Vernon backed out of the shed, as instructed by Hestia. Muttering under his breath what a waste of time and the silly pranks he and his family would have to endure. Words like preposterous, and under my dignity, came slightly audible from his lips. The witch and wizard probably heard every word of it, but they let his snide remarks pass without them even raising an eyebrow.

However, outside of the shed waited a huge surprise for the Dursleys. They did not seem to be in the same spot that they had been only five minutes ago! The world must have gone topsy turvey! Because everything that had been there a few minutes ago seemed to have disappeared! The surroundings had changed completely. All they had done was parking the car inside an old runned down shed. How could this ever be possible?! All of the Dursleys were totally dumbstruck. 

Petunia and Dudley could not utter one single word. They simply emerged from the car like zombies with their mouths  slightly hanging open in astonishment. So this was what had happened when they had been weightless? Dudley thought. They had been transported to somewhere else entirely!

Vernon however, promptly started yelling again at the witch and wizard from the top of his lungs for having cast a bloody spell on him and his familys eyes. He pointed a stubby finger at both of them and shouted that he would like for them to immediately take him and his family back to normality that very instant! He wanted to remove himself and his family as far away from them as he could. Again, he had changed his mind completely about this mambo-jambo business! He was not going to take any more nonsense from this freak-show they were putting up!

Vernon did not feel much intimidation towards theese two people because he somehow felt their appearance did not require it, not yet anyway. None of them emitted the kind of powers that white bearded old wizard from the previous summer did. Therefore he did not have much respect for them. He also felt he needed to show them who wasin charge!

This time Dedalus, patient as ever, though a little overwhelmed with him, told Vernon to just relax and that this had all been a part of the whole plan for from the very beginning. He pointed out to him that there even might be a slight chance that the Death-Eaters already had found the place where the shed had been standing by now, if something had gone wrong on the other end. Therefore, going back to Surry would probably play straight into their hands and thus compromise his family’s life-security completely. He also said that if he and Hestia had told them about the method they were going to use for their getaway, they knew there would be a huge possibility he and his family would have point back refused to come along with them to begin with, and they did not want to risk that.

Vernon shouted that he were damn right about that! Hestia interrupted the conversation and reassured Vernon that they truly had all of his family’s best interests at heart, and that was the whole reason why they had decided not to tell them about the getaway-shed. They were fully aware that the port key probably would be somewhat of an ordeal for them to handle. However, it was necessary for them to make a quick getaway from Surry and this was the most efficient way. She promised him they could talk about it some more if he wished, as soon as they had reached their final destination and were safe and sound inside the safe-house they had set up for them. Hestia asked him to please have a little more patient with them about the matter. She added that right now they needed to move along as quickly as possible in case something truly had gone wrong and they somehow were to be intercepted. 

Vernon looked like he did not have an ounce of patience in his body at the moment. However, and to his big surprise, his wife came up to his side, patted him on the arm and reassured him that they probably did not have much of a choice at that point anyway. This was some new, easy-going side of Petunia Vernon had never seen before in his life, and astonished with her attitude on the matter seemed to at least make him calm down sufficiently to refrain from shouting at them anymore.

Before they had entered the shed they had been surrounded by large fields of wheat and grass, the scenery had been wide, and you could see quite far in every direction. When they emerged again they were standing on a hillside, surrounded by a thick forest. There were several little streams and creeks nearby trickling down the sloping hill. The scenery surrounding them were green with different trees and plants and there were flowers and bushes in all sort of different shapes and colours. They could hear birds singing loudly, and a soft rustling breeze through the trees was swooshing gently around them making the rather warm summer evening quite enjoyable. The environment was completely serene. No traffic or other sounds of civilisation could be heard anywhere. Vernon demanded to know where on earth they had taken them! But Hestia simply told him to please be patient, and wait until they had reached their final destination before he got his answers.

Dudley had never been in a place like this before in his entire life. Even though he was afraid of everything and everybody right now, he found that he quite liked this place in a way. It seemed to be utterly secluded and it felt like nobody would ever detect them there. None of those horrible Dementors nor that Voldemort person was likely to be in such a place, he thought.  As he scanned the surroundings, he couldn´t even see a road that lead up to the spot where they had arrived. The little imagination Dudley was in possession of, provided him with images of bullies in cars driving by with guns shooting wildly around them. Because that was what he had seen on films. Here, in this forest, something like that seemed to not be an issue, and he quite liked that.

They had been instructed to take their belongings out of the car and place it in a heap on the grass. Then the wizard called Dedaus did a swooshing flick with his wand and all of their belongings suddenly disappeared. This made Vernon instantly jump to his guns again and started to shout at him, wondering what the devil he thought he was doing?! Perhaps he had led them there to be trying to steal all of their belongings?! He wanted to know what the meaning of all of this was!

At the same time, he was making it quite clear that Vernon Dursley looked upon both Hestia and Dedalus as nothing more than common thieves. Hestia looked like she was about to give Vernon a strict retort, and her eyes was like flying daggers! Fortunately for Vernon, Dedalus reacted first. He simply turned his head around to face him and lowered his wand. At this point, you could see his patience ebbing away, as he told Vernon that he had only sent their belongings ahead so that they did not have to carry it. Because they all had to walk some distance from the car to get to the safe house. He pointed his finger up the hills and said that he assumed that they did not want to carry their luggage all the way up there themselves?! He also added to Vernon that he had been quite patient with him with every outburst of his, the short time they had been together. However, if Vernon had one more unnecessary tantrum, and if he served them another insult without any cause, he might have to hex him quiet, because they actually were in a hurry and they did not have any time for this nonsense!

That seemed to be good enough reasons to quiet down Vernons tongue once more. Except he muttered to himself that Dedalus might have mentioned what he was about to do before he went ahead and removed their luggage from their sight!

Dedalus looked at him, patience now coming back to him, and actually said that he agreed with him. He then apologised to them all for being too abrupt on the matter, and added that he would try to be a little more considerate when using magic in the future.

Vernon Dursley was at a total loss as to how he should behave towards these people. He had always assumed that any witch or wizard had only one intention, and that was to hurt him and his family. The only thing he had to use as a weapon against them was his anger, his corpulent sized body and his raw muscles in defending himself and his family. Considering all past encounters with magical people, seen from his point of view, who could really blame him.

It is true that he had brought much of it upon himself and communication was not his strongest side, however, this time he really ought to take into consideration that these two particular people actually was doing this to keep him and his family safe from harm.

Vernon did have a hard time in truly believing that all of this security stuff was necessary though, but since his wife and son obviously thought so, he had no choice but to play along. What was it to him and his family if Harry Potter had a deadly nemesis?! Vernon did not care too much about that. He had always thought Harry a little brat. If someone wanted to make Harrys life miserable he, Veron, would not stand in their way. He felt that Harry had caused so much trouble for him and his family during the years that he would not mind getting rid of him. He was utterly indifferent to the fact that Harry and his friends really were the people whom had arranged for them all to be safe.

Vernon however, felt that if i had not been an urge from the Prime Minister’s office, he certainly would not have left Privet Drive at all. Ofcourse he did not want his family to suffer, and since Dudley really had wanted to hide, he had concented to it. Well, Vernon thought, he would simply have to be a little patient with all of this nonsense, and soon enough this entire idiotic business would be over. He was thinking that one or two extra weeks off work would do him well enough. If only these people could behave and dress in a more normal manner. Thank the heavens they were far away from civilisation and out in the woods. Hopefully, there would be no one else around here that could see him and his family together with these scruffy people. He would tag along with this silly plan of Harrys for as long he thought it were going to be necessary, otherwise he was convinced he would have to fight these people for doing them some sort of harm sooner or later.

Their car had now been parked inside the shed again and the shed was being covered in several bushes so that no one would ever find it if they came looking. Vernon off course complained that they would scratch his car, or dirty it up with leaves and dirt in addition to possibly bird droppings hitting it. Nevertheless,it did not seem as if he had any choice in the matter, and nothing he said could stop Hestia from continuing her work. The Dursleys stood rooted to the spot watching her perform her magic, covering up the car in the shed. She simply told him that it was going to be just fine, and that nothing was going to happen to it at all. She promised him he would find his car in a perfect condition when they was going to leave the place again. Vernon did not believe her for a second of course. However, there was not exactly any roads around there for him to simply get in the car with his family and leave the two of them behind. Instead, he started complaining about the grass and the insects, and had started to sneeze to no end.

Petunia was in some kind of a shock as she was looking around the place taking in the surroundings. She was a little apprehensive to what would possible appear next from these strange wizarding people. She was worried there would be so much magic surrounding them that her husband and son would not be able to handle it. She knew full well that they had a deep fear for magic, and she did not like it much herself. The two of them was not, after all, used to it like she had been once. Only the last couple of days back at Privet Drive she had somehow been mentally preparing herself to be surrounded by magic once more in her life.

She had been scared witless by that young Severus Snape boy all those years ago, and on several occasions later in life through Harry and his lot. However, she at least, had been growing up living together with a witch as a child, and had somehow tolerated it back then, even though she did not understand it. She only hoped these people would be considerate enough with them on the matter.

The woman, however eccentric Petunia found her looks, seemed to be strict but somehow reasonable in a way. The man could seem to be a patient man, with a somewhat soothing mood. Well, they were of course too scruffy looking for her to be seen together with in public, but around here where there did not seem to be anyone else, she could make an certain effort to be able to tolerate them. As long as she did not have to worry about the neighbours back home seeing them and talking about her family with snide remarks, it was going to be okay. The most important thing in the world for her at this point was that her family was hidden from any kind of danger. She knew a little bit about Voldemort. Her sister Lily had told her about him when they were younger. She knew more about the dangers he represented than she had ever wanted to admit to herself or had even mentioned to her husband.

The most pressing worry Petunia had at the moment, however, was actually the pair of shoes she had picked out for today’s outfit. She had thought they were going to London or some big city or other, where they could be concealed from danger, and she was therefore wearing a nice green dress she seldom wore, underneath her salmon coloured trench coat, she had also put on her new green velvet pumps to match her dress. She had wanted to dress up nicely because she somehow needed to show these wizards that she was dressed like a lady, even though her sister had been a somewhat scruffy witch. At some point, she also felt it was important to show her husband how much she differed from her sister and her lot.

The shoes, however, were not exactly fitting for these kind of surroundings, and she now wished they had given her some sort of a heads-up about it before leaving Privet Drive. However, Petunia knew she probably was the only one thinking along that line in their entire group seeing the shoes that this Hestia woman was wearing. She certainly did not want to make a fuss about it to Vernon, because he was distressed enough with the situation as it were, so she kept her mouth shut about it for now. Admitting it to herself, she also was a little afraid of the witch and wizard, as they had only just met. The previous wizards they had encountered with had never seemed to be very kind.

Hestia was the one to usher them along so they could get inside the house and be safe as soon as possible. She told them to follow her and not to stray off or lagger behind. They started to walk on a path that Dudley was sure had not been there only a minute ago, however he did not say anything out loud so that his father would not start yelling again. Dudley felt that even though he did not enjoy the getaway in the shed at all, he still felt grateful towards the Order and Harry for making these arrangements for them all to be safe. Naturally, he was afraid of these new people, and would have been more at ease if Harry had come along somehow. Now they would have to trust them and hope they were all going to be okay. Besides, Dudley secretly had always been a little curious about Harry’s magical world. Perhaps he would get a little glimpse of it now?

They started walking through the forest, passing ferns, wildflowers of any colour and all other sorts of different bushes and trees. The path kept on bending and turning. Everywhere Dudley looked, he saw something different. He certainly had nothing like this in his mind when he had been thinking about where they might be heading for their hide out. He had thought of Majorca, just as his father had, if he were to be honest. As if it was some kind of vacation they were headed to. Nevertheless, this truly seemed like a better choice. It was not so stifling hot around here as it would have been in Spain at this time of year.

They crossed several of the creeks on huge slabs of stones. However, sometimes they had to jump from one step-stone to another to cross. His father, of course, made a huge deal of this not being part of any agreement. Although he did keep a somewhat civil tongue, actually being rather afraid he would be hexed into silence.

Petunias shoes were finally taking their toll on her. She was giving little shrieks whenever she was about to fall over. Vernon had always been a perfect gentleman towards her and now he tried to support her as best he could whenever they were crossing a stream. Luckily, Vernon did not have enough breath to both walk and shout angrily about these things at the same time, and they somehow managed to move along quite briskly. Hestia asked Petunia at some point if she wanted her to help her out with her shoes, but she declined, as they were one of her finest pair. She knew that Hestia probably could change the shape of them into something more practical. However, she certainly did not want anything bad to happen to them so she simply had to endure it. Besides performing more magic in front of them because of her shoes was probably not something her husband would accept at the moment. Therefore, she held her tongue and endured it as best as she could.

The hike only lasted for about fifteen minutes or so, but the path had taken them further and further up the hillside. Their trail was clinging to the slopes like a snake. The sun was just about to set and they all wanted to get inside before it became dark. Hestia made up the front to show them the way, and Dedalus formed the rear-guard of their party. Dudley turned around once or twice to check how far they had walked away from the car. Only it made him a little uneasy and confused because he could not see the path where they had just been walking and he were sure Dedalus was wiping the path away with his wand as they walked on, or something. He was torn about finding the very idea of that unnerving or incredible brilliant. Nevertheless, he concluded that the deeper they were hidden from danger the better really.

Then, about fifty yards after they had been turning right on an arm of the hillside, they reached some sort of a landing. Hestia suddenly stopped in front of a giant grey boulder and a rather beautiful rose bush sitting next to it. She then handed Vernon a note and asked him to please read it. Vernon, panting quite heavily from the hike by now, read the note to himself. Then he looked at Hestia in utter incomprehension. She pointed at somewhere past the rose bush, and told him to take a look. Vernons face went a little pale and his jaw dropped as if he could not believe what he was seeing. Rooted to the spot he handed Petunia the note.

Bursting with curiosity, she read the note as well. She imitated Vernon in expression when she looked in the same direction past the rose bush as he had done. At this point Dudley lost patience with them both, snatched the note from his mother and read the few simple words; ”Welcome Dursley family to the Bee Hive.” When Dudley looked up from the note, he saw a beautiful little cottage some distance away. It was built in stone that had been whitewashed in an old-fashioned but cosy way. It had a thatched roof and several chimneys visible on top of it. The house was perfectly situated at the curving end of a large, somewhat overgrown garden.  Behind the house, the slopes continued upwards and into the forest. No other houses were to be seen anywhere near them. The sun had made the garden bathe in a dark pink light, and the effect of it made the scenery rather romantic. They were all standing in front of a white picket fence with a matching gate. There was a charming archway of rosehip roses that smelled wonderful. Petunia exclaimed a sigh and a; ”oh, my!”. Dudley mouthed a «wow!». While Vernon did not notice any of it, he simply kept on with his panting and sneezing while he was waving away mosquitos and flies from his red and sweaty face.

Hestia opened the gate for them and they all entered into the garden. She told them that inside of this fence were their safe-environment. As long as they did not walk outside it, they would be safe for as long as they were to stay there.

There were a tiny step-stone path for them to follow up to the house. Dudley noticed that the house somehow seemed to grow bigger and bigger as they moved closer. Several more windows seemed to erupt from the walls and the house became wider and taller with every step they took. His father had of course noticed this too and started to mumble to his mother about looking out for all sorts of dangerous witchcraft, with his whispers pitching into higher and higher notes, that this was not natural at all. However Vernon did not dare to utter any of these thoughts out loud, nor did he know what was waiting for them when they approached the house. Perhaps there was another dangerous and powerful wizard there.

Mostly Vernon found he feared the memory of that man with the white long beard that had visited them in Privet Drive the previous summer. He had been the first wizard that he really felt he had needed to show some sort of respect somehow.

All the Dursleys approached the house in a knot, cowering a little and feeling apprehensive. Vernon was still not sure if he had decided to endure all sorts of weird things from these freaky people to keep his family safe. He already felt like they were giving him a really hard time to accept it. Dudley too was a little anxious to find out what he would see or meet next. He was still afraid but at the same time clinging to the feeling that Harry and his friends really would be keeping them safe. Why on earth would they have him and his family go through all of this if they did not?!

The pathway led them around the right corner on to the back of the house, and showed them a welcoming entrance with more flagstones to make some sort of a patio outside the few step-stones that led up to a torch-lit entrance. There were all sort of different garden-flowers sitting in vast pots of all kinds of different mismatched colours. The impression of it all made it look like the house belonged to an old but colourful lady.

All of a sudden, the front door swung open, Petunia gave a little shriek, and the Dursleys jumped in unison. Out the door entered a huge man with charcoal wispy shoulder length hair that certainly had not met a pair of scissors for years. There were a few tinges of white hair right above both of his ears to indicate his age. He also had a large beard and an even longer moustache to match his bushy hair. Their first impression of him was that he looked positively wild. Almost like that giant bloke that came crashing down the door to give Harry his letter all those years ago. Except this one was more of a normal sized man on Vernons age and height. He had big green eyes, and round silver antique spectacles sitting on his long rather red, pear-shaped nose. The little you could see of his cheekbones that was not covered in beard was apple-red and round. He had huge workman-fists that looked as if he had been working outside ploughing a field all of his life. He wore old-fashioned wide dungarees with an old and patched-up navy-blue jumper made of wool underneath. On top of that again he wore a well-worn brown leather-vest. He had red woollen socks on and one of his huge toes were poking out a little from one of them. He definitely had the appearance of a man the Dursleys never would have associated themselves with on a daily basis. However all his clothes seemed to be clean even though they seemedto be rather worn.

Petunia however, felt her lips purse in disapproval. She even tried to discreetly sniff in his direction to check if he had taken a bath lately or not. However, she could not detect any bad scent emitting from him at all. This actually surprised her a little. However, she was still sure that unless he had a wife living there with him, the house on the inside must be utterly uninhabitable. She was not sure she was willing to enter this man’s house at all, let alone sleep and eat there, no matter how romantic the house and garden looked from the outside. Well, from her perspective, the garden was in need of some weeding, however it seemed large and somewhat charming.

For the first time that day Vernon did not say anything at all, dumbstruck by the way this man’s appearance differed from the way he behaved. Therefore, rooted to the spot, Vernon held his tongue. Although inwardly he was sizing him up, wondering if he could take him on if he had to.

Dudley on the other hand, had a totally different and rather surprising reaction to the man. He had been so apprehensive to what was going to emerge from the house that when this man stepped out so utterly happy to receive them, Dudley felt his breath reach the bottom of his stomach again and his shoulders were falling back into place. Dudley had been afraid of wizards his entire life. They had always targeted him and he had been powerless to defend himself. However, this man seemed to erupt calmness and kindness like no other person he had ever met. Dudley could not say why, nor could he help himself feeling he rather liked him from the start. At least he did not feel like he had to hide behind his mother this time.  

The man himself were positively beaming, and were half laughing with excitement. He was greeting them with open arms stretched out to them as if they were long lost friends or relatives, genuinely inviting them into his home. He said his name was Arabrax Bricklehurst, but told them all just to call him Ax. The whole Dursley family was still rooted to the spot not uttering a word, so Hestia gave him a brief introduction of the Dursley family letting him know their names. Ax continued to beam as he told them they were very welcome to his home.

He ushered them inside and told them that their belongings had already arrived and he had taken the liberty to bringing them upstairs to their respectable rooms. He showed them in to a large, welcoming and somehow cosy living room. It was a little man-worn Petunia thought, and it was not quite clean enough for her standards. However, she was incredible surprised it was not messier and dirtier than she had imagined it to be just a minute ago.

The living room was a little bit overcrowded with furniture form all sort of old mismatch. The drapes were flowery and a little too feminine for this man she thought. However, the main impression was that this was a cosy home, and Petuina kept wondered again, where his wife were keeping herself. The only thing she detected from her discreet sniffing around the room was the weak smell of tobacco pipe, to her great surprise.

There were a huge grate in the middle of the room and several seating arrangements spread out around it, as if plenty of people usually were living there. The room had several windows in different directions and they all had a good view of the garden and the surrounding hills and valley everywhere you looked. A large old-fashioned grandfather clock was sitting between two of the windows, making the calming sounds of tick-tock and somehow giving life to the room.

Then Ax asked them to please find themselves a seat so that they could get to know each other a little. The Dursleys sat themselves down, but were somehow still a little shy and sceptical towards him and consequently they said nothing. Therefore, Hestia and Dedalus together told Ax the story of the Dursley family, making the Dursleys rather astonished about how much the two of them actually knew about them. All this without ever having met them before in their lives.

Vernon expressed his feelings out loud about this, which made Dedalus chuckle a little, then he looked straight at him and told him that the two of them actually had met once before. Sixteen years earlier Dedalus had bumped into him on a street in London and Vernon had most kindly apologised to him for it. Dedalus had been so happy about «You know Who» being gone that he had not paid proper attention to where he was going when he accidentally had bumped into him. It was a funny thing now, he said, that their paths actually had crossed again. He told him that only later on he had found out that the very same man he had met in that Street in London were actually one of Harry Potters only living family relations.

Vernon was sitting in his chair completely stunned. Looking at him more closely, he actually did remember this man, seeing him properly for the first time in sixteen years. He remember having been anxious about all these weird looking people in the streets and their whispers about the Potters. He actually never had told Petunia about this encounter in London all those years ago. Therefore, his family was now looking at him quite astonished because of this little piece of information.

Well, Dedalus continued, he himself had found out quite a bit about the whereabouts of Harry Potter since he already back then had been a part of the Order of the Phoenix. He continued by telling them that he actually had visited his good friend Ms Arabella Figg several times through the years, and she happened to live nearby the Dursleys. Therefore, he was quite acquainted with their appearances beforehand. He had of course been given strict instructions from both Professor Dumbledore and the Ministry of Magic not to approach Harry or interfere with their family life at all. He told them that had been really a hard promise to keep. Harry was after all an incredible famous person in their world. «The Boy who lived» they all called him.

Dedalus said he had been dying to shake Harrys hand back then. However, he did not want to startle the child before even being acquainted with him, nor Harry being aware of the magical world at all.

Vernon inwardly snorted at this «Boy who Lived» comment, however he said nothing, he was only waiting for the shock to settle, and for this man to continue. Dedalus however, did not elaborate on the matter, which actually aggravated Vernon a little.

Hestia then said to Ax that the Dursleys probably were curious about who he was and he agreed to tell them his story. He told them that as a child, he had been born into a wizarding family, but as it turned out, he was a squib. That meant that he had no magical powers whatsoever, but his entire family were wizards. Back in the days when he grew up it was a huge embarrassment for wizarding families to give birth to squibs. The general custom was actually to send their squib children away into the muggle world so that they could live their lives as muggles and have normal muggle lives. As if that would take care of the business, he said bitterly. He would always remember where he came from, what his family were and that they all were deeply ashamed of him being a squib. He had actually been adopted by a muggle family at the age of five, and lived with them up until he became twelve years old, then he had had enough of all the pretending and left them behind to move in with his great old aunt Tilly Bricklehurst. She had been the one who had owned this house before him and he had inherited it when she had died some years ago.

He had received a letter from her, one day back then, telling him that she rather needed some help around the place as she was growing older and she had asked him if he would like to come and live with her instead of with the muggles. Ax had found he did not mind at all to move to this secluded part of the world to live with her. Actually, it had felt as if a huge burden had been lifted from his shoulders, he said. Finally, there was someone in the world who understood him. Someone whom was a blood relative that actually cared for him even though he was a squib. She did not have much contact with anybody else in the family, therefore she had not known anything about him earlier. She taught him how to manage in the wizarding world without having to use any magic at all, and he was ever so grateful for that.

She had always been a bit of a hermit and was somehow rather eccentric in her own way. She liked to experiment with potions and spells and her best friends in the world were the birds and the bees, in addition to all the other creatures who lived with her on her farm. He told them that he himself was now a farmer. He was completely self-sufficient, and he did not need much from the shops at all anymore.

The rest of the farm could not be seen very well from the house, but he could show them one day if they were interested. He also told them his aunt had named the place «the Bee Hive» a long time ago, because of the bees she kept, explaining the note they had just read before they entered the garden.

Hestia and Dedalus was going to stay there with them as well they told them. The two of them was going to be their lifeguards for as long as it was required. They also told the Dursleys that they had given the place all kind of protection wizards knew, and the place certainly would be hard to detect by anyone, wizards and muggles alike. They did not know anything about the duration of their stay, however they all had prepared for a long-term visit for them and hoped that they would find everything comfortable around the place.

Vernon now thought it was about time they had a conversation with this witch and wizard about their usage of magic. He told them he did not want any of it around him and his family.

The two of them agreed that they would not use magic unless it was completely necessary and after they had given them a fair warning first. The only exception was going to be if they somehow had some unexpected company from dark wizards, or if anybody were in some sort of a danger. Both Hestia and Dedalus made it quite clearly to them that they wanted the Dursleys to be safe. They were there for their protection, and was going to make sure nothing bad happened to them.

All of the Dursleys were all quite satisfied with this agreement, feeling that the two of them might be a little less hostile than any other wizards they had met before. The three of them were now, slowly but surely starting to feel a little bit more at ease around them. Vernon being the most sceptical, was still thinking to himself that he would wait and see if they truly kept their word. Nevertheless, he actually was quite satisfied with their agreement for now.

The Dursleys was then showed to their accommodations upstairs. The house had four fairly sized bedrooms on the first floor. There were also two bathrooms and a parlour. They had been given almost the entire floor to themselves. Except that Hestia was to take one of the bedrooms and a small bathroom at the far end of the floor, while the Dursleys rooms was situated in the other end. Ax was a little gouty himself and did not care to climb those stairs if he could help it. Therefore, he had been living on the main floor since before his aunt had died. Dedalus took a bedroom on the main floor next to Ax´s.

Upstairs Dudley suddenly felt he needed to take a wiz and checked out the facilities. The bathroom was quite old-fashioned looking. After having finished with his business, Dudley sceptically tried to run the water in the sink, not truly believing it would work being so old-fashioned looking. However, to his big surprise, after a long and loud burp, fresh water came running out of the tap. Dudley giggled to himself and thought it cute and a little funny.

The parlour in the mid-section of the floor upstairs, they were told was going to be for their own disposition if they should choose to have some alone time to themselves. The room had three windows overlooking the garden. It was furnished with some pretty looking but antique furniture, and it seemed as if it was a living room used only for special occasions. It was quite spacious and the three of them could utilize it rather comfortably. However, right there and then, Dudley was far too curious to even think of just staying put up there with only his parents. This house and the people staying there with them were far too interesting to him. Admittingly, he still was a little apprehensive towards them, only he felt his curiosity was getting the better of him and he was eager to return downstairs to learn more.

After having briefly checking out their rooms and cleaned up a bit, the Dursleys all went downstairs. There they were met in a pretty’ish dining room with a wonderful smell of all of Dudleys favourite food in the world. This was the first time since they had left Privet Drive Dudley noticed that he was actually rather hungry. He never usually forgot a meal, nevertheless, this day certainly differed from all other days in his usually ever so predictable life. He also thought to himself that people who served him this kind of excellent food could not be harmful people. Even his fathers mood seemed to be lifted at that point. It was as if Vernon had thought their intention would be to starve them all the time they were going to be there. He was of course a little apprehensive towards the food, worried if it were poisoned or something. He actually was about to kick Dudleys foot for digging in as they sat down, to warn him not to eat anything.  Only he could not reach him from under the table, and still afraid he would be hexed if saying anything at all, he ended up saying nothing.

Dudley was completely oblivious about any of this and ate happily everything within reach. His three new aquaintance did the same, and when Petunia dared to take her first bite Vernon caved and started to dig in himself. After all he was ravenous, and everything looked and smelled so fantastic he would not be able to refrain himself for long anyway. As he too dug in, he found the food was everything as delicious as it smelled.

The conversation around the table was a light one too. Hestia and Dedalus was telling them about their lives and how come they had ended up being their watch guard. Since Dedalus already had told them a little bit about his life, it was Hestias turn to let them become acquainted with her.

She left out the part when she had been a little reluctant to guard them it in the first place, and jumped right into a different, however equally true part of her life.

She told them that almost her entire family had been murdered by some of the Death Eaters in a most horrifying way back in the days, when the two Potters had diseased. Nobody had warned her family to go in hiding because some of the Death Eaters were after her, nor had she herself been there to protect them. She did not want Harry Potters last living family go through the same, simply because they were muggles and unable to defend themselves from wizards.

This kind of entertainment made it easy for the Dursleys to focus on eating instead of being expected to talk themselves.

Hestia had figured out that it probably would be best for the Dursleys to know her and Dedalus better to be able to interact on a more normal level. After all, it was the Dursleys who was so clearly apprehensive towards them not the other way around. It was not her and Dedalus whom had been taken away from their ordinary lives and placed into a totally different and secret world. Therefore they had agreed that they was going to make the transition, from then on, as smooth and gentle for the Dursleys as they possibly could. Hestia knew that the main key for doing so, would be through plenty of communication.

Mr Vernon Dursley had somewhat done so by expressing his fear for magic and thus the settlement for not using magic around them at all times. This would probably prove to have some difficulties, Hestia imagined, since it simply was so inherently in both her and Dedalus. Although they would both have to do their best. Besides, as long as the Dursleys did not detect them in performing the magic she figured out it would probably be all right.

They also told the Dursleys how the three of them had come to know each other. Dedalus knew Arabrax very well through his aunt from back in the days when the two of them had been teenagers. Dedalus and his old grandmother had visited Tilly Bricklehurst to negotiate about some chickens only to find she had adopted a twelve-year-old nephew who was a squib. Dedalus had always been an outgoing and including person and liked the boy from the very beginning. They had kept on visiting each other and thus the two of them had been good friends for several years. Hestia on the other hand, knew Dedalus quite well from when they had been attending school together back in the days. The two of them had been in the same gobstone club at school, and had been good friends ever since. Hestia and Ax, however, had only met a couple of weeks ago to plan for their hideout.

After having eaten at least three helpings, each they all retired to the living room again. The atmosphere had become lighter between them all and the Dursley family was starting to relax a little more now they had been fed and watered in an outmost satisfyingly manner, in addition to the light conversation around the table. All of them sat themselves down in a comfortable armchair again. Ax had started to tell them another story from his youth when a sudden light pierced the room and took the shape of a Lynx. The creature started to speak and Petunia shrieked out loudly and almost fainted. Vernon jumped up in fear from his chair and both Ax and Dedalus had to hold him back to prevent him from hitting the creature. They shouted at him to drown his yelling that it was only a message for them all and that he needed to sit down, this could be important.

Hestia Jones was all calm about it and managed to receive the message that was delivered to them. The creature disappeared again as suddenly as it had arrived. The absence from its light had left the living room seem a lot darker that it had been before it arrived. Vernon shouted that he thought they had an agreement about not using magic! However Dedalus replied that this was something out of their control. This was an urgent message from someone elsewhere in the magical world, and they did not have any means to stop them from coming. He added that this kind of message was of a rare kind and that it was not something that would happen on a daily basis. This had to be something important, and he begged Vernon to calm down.

Hestia was all pale in the face when she finally turned around to address them all. Dedalus let go of Vernon and asked her what the message was all about.

The message had been sent to them from Kingsley Shacklebolt, the Prime Ministers own bodyguard. She told them all to sit down, she then took a deep breath and told them that Harrys parting from Privet Drive had not quite gone as well as they had planned. Someone called Mad Eye Moody had died in the attempt of saving him, another one called Mundungus Fletcher had panicked and had left them all in a tight spot. Dedalus shouted out loud at this. He obviously knew this Mundungus person, and said he was going to hex him real good when he next met with him. Hestia continued that one of the Weasly twins was badly injured and they all had just barely survived it. She said «You know Who» had been there as well and he had been hunting down Harry. Fortunately, and once again he had managed to escape him. This time, it seemed, Harry had only just managed it.

The content of the message altered the whole feeling of the room. That information had made this whole going undercover business a lot more real to all of the Dursleys. Especially Vernon whom had not really believed in any of it. He still did not care about Harry at all, his worries was for himself and his family. It had been a good thing after all then, leaving Privet Drive when they had done. Now he only hoped that his house back in Surry was still standing as they had left it, or else they would have to move away from Privet Drive for good. Well all right, Vernon resigned, he could spend some time here in this house. He certainly would not go on about returning them to Privet Drive any time soon.

Petunia was absolutely white in her face. She did not utter a sound, however she actually felt that she was worrying a little bit about Harry. She had never really showed him any affection at all, because she never truly had felt anything real for him. Nevertheless, hearing that he actually had been in such a mortal danger, made her feel something in her stomach. She could not say exactly what it was but she somehow recognized it as regret. She regretted that she had treated him so badly all those years. She did not say anything out loud about it of course. Nevertheless, she did feel a little ashamed of herself and her conduct towards him. She had wanted to punish her sister through him, and now he had been in true mortal danger. She had not really wanted to believe in all of these things at all, except she really did know didn´t she? When her own boy Diddy had been attacked by those Dementors some years ago, she had realized the true danger of it all. However she had been so focused on her darling boy she had not given Harry much thought and the danger he might be facing in all of this. Now reality suddenly had dawn upon her, just as it had done when her sister had died all those years ago, and all of it was terrifying. She had no intention to talk to Vernon about any of these feelings. She had always kept things like this to herself. Besides, he had never had any empathy for Harry, why would he start now? Most importantly of all she needed Dudley to be safe. She would do and endure anything for her only child for as long as it took as long as Dudley would stay safe!

Dudley felt a knot tightening in his stomach and nausea rising in his throat hearing what had happened to Harry. He felt his ears ringing and his head becoming lighter. He was afraid he was about to faint and he did not want to do that just now. He fought to stay focused and managed to swallow the worst of his feelings. All he could think of was why did not Harry come with them! Dudley had thought all along that he was to go in hiding together with them all. However, Harry had not seemed to have given that a single thought himself. He had wanted to be with his friends. Coming to think of it, Dudley could not blame him really, he knew himself and his family did not have a good relationship with Harry. Although Dudley had thought he would have been thinking of his own safety first. That was certainly what he would have done.

Dudley felt scared witless about what Harry had just gone through. He could not help thinking about his Dementor attack. He kept reliving it sitting there in this cosy living room far, far away from everything. After fifteen minutes or so pondering about these things with his mouth slightly hanging open, Dudley wondered out loud if Harry was safe now. Hestia smiled at him and reassured him that he was going to be ok.

The feeling of horror seemed to fester in all of them in different ways, and nobody said much until Vernon broke the silence about an hour later and announced that he was feeling rather weary of the day, and if they did not mind, he would like to be excused and retire to bed. Petunia followed him without a word after having kissed Dudley goodnight.

Dudley on the other hand felt like sitting a little longer with these Order people. He wanted to talk some more to them about Harry, this Voldemort person and last but not least the Dementor attack that he had experienced two years ago. Perhaps they could tell him a little bit more about the Dementors and what would happen to him if they kissed him. He had not been able to talk to anybody about these feelings before and now he had every chance in the world. He also wanted to make sure that the Dementors could not find them there. He actually found his mood lifted a little as they started to talk about it all.

They also talked about how Harry had escaped once more. That seemed to be the most important thing in the world to Ax, Hestia and Dedalus. As they filled him in on the few extra details they had on Harrys move, Dudley became a little astonished that Harrys closest friends were so willing to sacrifice their lives for his benefit.

Hestia and Dedalus on the other hand were surprised Dudley did not know more about his cousin than he actually did. They updated him on how the wizarding world really looked upon his cousin. Dudley was shocked and almost in a little disbelief about it all. How could Harry be this famous when he did not act any differently around the house back at Privet Drive?

He soon understood from the three of them that Harry Potter was a bigger person than most people were. He also learned that Harry did not look upon himself as any more important than anyone else did even though he knew he was singled out to be some kind of a hero. Dudley secretly started to feel a little proud of him actually.

The four of them was staying up until it turned two o´clock that night, then Dudley barely could keep his head up, and they all urged him to go to bed. Dudley, was feeling quite satisfied with the answers he had received from them. However, he was still full of horrors about both Voldemort and the Dementors, yet comforted by the fact that neither of them would ever think of come looking for them there. Not many people in the world even knew that this place existed and only a tiny handful knew that Harry Potter’s relations were hiding there. Even Harry Potter did not know where they were. It was for all of their protection, and Harrys too of course.

Dudley finally staggered himself upstairs. Inside his room, he dragged off his shoes and trouser, and fell asleep on top of the bed covers. He was dreaming a curious dream, and the next morning he would be pondering about it for a while before he went downstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The house on my profile-image is supposed to resemble their safe house of sorts. Not exactly, but almost.


	10. Soap Bubbles

Dudley woke up with a start and looked around the room. He sighed and thought to himself ”so it was real then". It truly had happened. He actually had left Privet Drive and Harry, perhaps forever. Now he had entered this strange place in the world together with his parents and all of it was for real. He was lying in the bed for a while, looking around the room a little more closely than he had done the previous evening. There had not been much light in the room when he had been up there the day before. Now he was able to inspect the room properly for the first time. The sun was piercing through the curtains and positively flooded the room with light. His bed was quite comfortable. It was a lot wider than the bed he was used to back at home. It was also higher than the one he had in Surry. The frame was made of dark carved wood, and the headboard was quite huge and elaborated. There seemed to be several mattresses on top of each other, and he liked the squashy feeling it gave his body. He had a couple of huge and fluffy down pillows in there too, and even though he had fallen asleep on top of the covers he somehow had managed to slip underneath it through the night. 

He felt utterly rested. There had been no traffic sounds or chattering from neighbours disturbing his sleep. All he could hear through the ajar window was birds chirruping and the wind gently rustling the trees outside. He looked to the side on to his wooden nightstand and noticed an old-fashioned alarm clock with huge bells on top of it. He smiled to himself, remembering a prank heand his best friend Piers Polkiss had set on Piers´s father years ago. They had been setting the alarm for him on a Sunday morning at seven o’clock without him being any the wiser. He went totally ballistic when he found out it was a Sunday and he had got up to prepare himself for a workday. Both Dudley and Piers had found that hilarious at the moment. However, Piers actually had ended up being grounded for two weeks for that nonsensical prank. Dudley smiled to himself and shook his head a little, as to shake the memory out of his head and return to the room he had woken up in.

Next to the watch sat an old-fashioned gas lamp. Dudley had never used one before and wondered for a second how on earth that would work. However, he did not linger on the lamp and its functionality. There were far too many other things around the room he was desperate to explore. Therefore, he sat up and leaned on his elbows to get a closer look at it all.

The bedroom-walls was painted in white and sky-blue wide vertical stripes. The roof was vaulted and the beams were painted white and the effect had a rather elegant and fresh, but cosy feel to it. There was a window overlooking one side of the garden. The curtains covering it was coloured in a somewhat faded midnight blue, with all sort of golden stars and planets sprinkled all around them. He wondered if this, perhaps, had been Ax`s room when he had first moved there. It might look like it had belonged to a young boy once, from the colours and items lying around the room.

There was an old-fashioned slingshot lying on top of a huge wooden dresser that looked like it had been used very well indeed, because both the leather on the handle and the sling was quite frayed. A large wooden-chest in the corner stood ajar and a bow were poking out of it. Dudley became curious about it so he got out of bed and went over, opened the lid and found several things in there he found interesting. Like an antique compass, an old-fashioned planetary set, several small blunt knives and swords, a small wooden shield with many dents and cuts. An old helmet, several arrows and bits of an ancient armour glove. There was a dark wooden, elegantly carved chair next to his window and a matching old-fashioned writing desk on the opposite wall. Sitting down on the chair by the desk, he found ink and a couple of anicent quills, in addition to a lot of old yellowing parchment. He also found a set of sealing wax and a stamp with the letter B and an eagle in the background. Dudley wondered how to use all of it and if that stamp had some sort of a meaning to it and if so, what? The old wide floorboards was covered in soft, homemade, woven carpets that matched the colours of the walls. 

Dudley found he quite liked his room. He thought he could probably stay up there forever just looking at all these strange old-fashioned things and trying them out. He really would have liked to show Piers all of this. But then he remembered that he would not be able to tell Piers any of it. How on earth would he even believe him if he told him where he was at the moment. Then Dudleys thoughts strayed outside and about the rest of the house. He thought of all the exiting and interesting things he might find there. He surely would have plenty of time checking out his own room later on. Right now he was more than curious about everything else in the house and the garden too, and just like that, he had forgot all about his best friend and what he might or might not be able to tell him.

As he was brushing his teethes in the bathroom he started to remember something he must have dreamt last night, or had that been real too he wondered? He thought he had met with a huge bumblebee, with big electric blue eyes. He had approached him and actually had said “Hello” to him in a very high and squeaky voice indeed. Then it had asked him who he was. Dudley remembered that he had seemed to be somehow a pleasant fellow. Then again, Dudley shook his head for thinking such nonsense. He made a note to himself not to mention any of this dream to his father, or he would probably have his head checked by a psychiatrist or something.

Dudley took a proper look around the bathroom. It too was quite spacious, even though one side of the room the roof was sloping. The visible beams were painted white in here as well, and the stone walls was also white except there was a painting of a duckling family fashioning some kind of a backsplash for the sink. The tiles on the floor were put in a checkerboard-pattern of black and white. The effect of it all made the room feel cool and inviting. Even though every facility was quite old fashioned looking, Dudley had never been in a more intriguing house in his life. There was a window overlooking the forest behind the house that was giving the room some daylight. Even though the sun would not reach this part of the house because of the forest and the hills hiding the place from that angle.Instead there were several gas lamps lit in the room to give some proper light and setting a contrast of warmer colour to the little daylight managing to sneak in.

Next to the toilet and the sink there sat a dark wooden and nicely carved dresser equipped with several towels, soap-bars and TPs. There were a medicine chest behind the mirror over the sink wich Dudley had checked that out the previous evening when he had visited the room for the first time. Now his mother had placed his and his parents tooth brush and paste in there, amongst other personal items the Dursley family needed in a bathroom.

There were a wooden shelf sitting on one of the walls filled with typical bathroom items like a seashell bowl filled with cotton. There was a huge jar of some cream or other and a few tiny bottles of something Dudley had no idea what was supposed to be used for. There were also small bottles of perfume of some sort, one smelled like honey and rose, another smelled of strawbery and lime and a third smelled like pine. There were dried lavender hanging from a peg next to it that gave scent to the room in general.Dudley also found an old set of shaving equippement with a brush and several knives sitting there. That made Dudley snort a little, thinking that the man living in this house at least had the equippement to shave, even though he choosed not to.

There were a rather large shower at the tallest end of the room with a small wooden bench sitting outside of it, almost like the ones the old churches had back in the days but nicer and a little more carved, and a lot less worn.

Then there was a huge black claw foot tub sitting directly under the window. Dudley felt as if he was drawn towards it and he went over to check it out. He then decided he might as well take a bath while he was there. He noticed that it was equipped with as many as four taps for him to choose from. He pulled one of the taps, and it started pouring out soap bubbles the size of a football. They smelled wonderful Dudley thought, like strawberry, honey and summer. He played with the bubbles for a little while and decided to try another one of the taps. This next one made the tub fill up at super speed. Dudley had to quickly turn it off again so it would not create a flood inside the house. This was really cool he thought, what about the other taps then?  Dudely hastily removed his clothes and popped into the tub. The water felt nice and warm and the bubbles tickled his chest. Dudley could not remember when the last time was that he had taken a bath. It was usually just a quick shower for him, after his boxing training at Smeltings, because there simply was no time for anything else.

The bathroom on his school dormitory actually did have a bathtub. Except Piers had used it as a urinal for laughs once, and ever since then, nobody had really wanted to use it. He did not think that anything like that had ever happened here though, and he had all the time in the world to grant himself with a bath. The water and bubbles were all very nice he thought.  Dudley turned on the third tap, except nothing happened at all. He poked it a little and had a closer look at it, but still nothing happened. "How strange was that?" he thought.  Suddenly he heard an ominous knocking sound coming from somewhere inside of it, and he decided to hastily turn it off.

After this he sat for a while wondering if the tub would harm him in any way. He did realize that it was not a quite normal bathtub, because of the bubbles and the water filling in so quickly and everything. However he had talked to Ax, the owner, last night, and he was certainly not a wizard, therefore he decided that there would not be any danger in this bathtub. 

Nevertheless, he approached the last tap a little more carefully. He took a closer look at the tap, where he actually noticed a little warning sign on it saying "Not for sissys, beware!" He took some more time to think things through, and decided he was not going to be a sissy. Besides, he was far too curious to even seriously consider not trying it out. Therefore, he turned it on. 

All of a sudden, several hands came flying out of the tap, like on a cartoon film or something. He screamed his head off and nearly fainted. He flat out panicked and struggled so much he almost drowned himself. He swallowed a bunch of bubble-water and started to cough. He was kicking and screaming, choking, and spluttering. He tried to get out of the tub, but instead he slipped around in the soapy water. He had somehow managed to get soap into his eyes, which he hated. Finally, he was hanging over the side of the tub trying to get all the soap out of his eyes spitting, coughing, sobbing and panting.

The hands had been trying to help cleaning him, but all of them had suddenly stopped in mid-air, as if they could hear him or at least understand him in a way. One hand actually put a towel into his hands so he could dry his eyes and face off instead.

Dudley finally had stopped panicking. However, his heart was beating faster than a race car. He silently sobbed a little into the towel for a minute or so before he managed to calm down a little more. He wondered if he would dare to look at the hands again at all. It was as if they were ghosts who had entered the room or something. He had never seen anything like it in his entire life. He had been convinced that there would have to be a wizard present to make magic happen. He knew was all alone in the bathroom, still this had to be magic for sure, the thought. There was no other reasonable explanation to this.

All of a sudden, one of the hands gently poked him on his shoulder. Dudley startle a little and was not sure if he was just going to ignore it and just sit there with the towel covering his eyes, or if he actually should stop being such a little sissy and actually face this little bit of harmless magic. He decided in the end he would face it. His mind had briefly struck a thought about Harry, how brave these people had told him he was. Therefore, Dudley lowered the handkerchief from his eyes and looked right at the hand that had poked him. It was signalizing to him to hand it the towel. Dudley, still breathing quite hard, reluctantly did. Another hand patted his head gently to show him they were not dangerous or going to harm him in any way.

After another minute or so Dudley noticed that his breathing started to calm down a little bit more. He realized that they only were there to help him, not drown him as he first had expected. Then two of the hands gently started to wash his hair. After another minute or so, he had calmed down even more and understood that it was not dangerous at all. He then started to relax a little and even enjoyed the experience a little bit. Two of the hands were washing his hair, two hands scrubbed his back and neck, one hand washed out his ears and the last two cleaned his toes and cut his toenails for him. All at the same time. 

After a little while Dudley actually started to smile a bit because of all of it. He thought that it really was rather nice once he got used to them. The hands had made him quite unemployed in there. He ended up lying back and enjoyed his bath for about twenty minutes or so. By then his own hands had become rather wrinkly from the water and two of the magical hands handed him a fresh towel to signalize that his bath had come to an end. Dudley got out of the tub and turned off the last tap and the magical hands suddenly disappeared all together. He then unplugged the stopper on the bottom of the tub and the water vanished quicker than he had ever seen bubble-water go away before. It also was as if the tub cleaned itself up, because when he turned around to look at it one more time it was gleaming as if it just had been scrubbed clean he thought. All of the soap bubbles had disappeared and the tub once again looked fresh and inviting.

Dudley decided he did not want to tell his father about this little bit of magic, or he might be banned from the bathtub altogether, just because there was a tiny bit of magic in it. Or perhaps he could simply warn him not to try it out at all. Dudley had in earnest always been afraid of wizards, and thus people whom he did not know very well. So basically, he ought to be scared witless from these hands. However, he figured out that the difference was that there in earnest were no wizard present in the room with him to perform the magic. It simply came out of an old bathtubs mixer, besides he was the one who had turned the taps on, so he himself could somehow decide how much or little magic he wanted to have for his own bath. Dudley found he liked this new discovery with himself. Perhaps he did not have to be so scared regarding magic after all. Or at least he thought, so far so good.

It truly was another fine day outside, and back in his room Dudley found a pair of shorts and a t-shirt his mother had packed for him to put on. He started to hum on a tune to himself, got dressed, and went downstairs to explore what moreentertainment this funny place had to offer.

 

 

 

 


	11. The Stunted Children

While Dudley was still in bed on the first day of the Dursleys stay at the Bee Hive, his parents had got up and was waiting to go downstairs to find something to eat. It was already way past Vernons breakfast time and he was really starting to get hungry. He and his wife was a little unsure if they should just pop down to help themselves with breakfast, or if somebody would eventually come and tell them that breakfast was served. Vernon wondered out loud the possibilty of the whole house still beeing asleep. He felt that one could simply not know with these kind of people, perhaps they slept until two in the afternoon for all he knew?! The two of them finally decided they would go down and see if there were anybody to help them out in any way. However, they did not bother to wait for their dear Dudders, as they both reckoned he had been awake for quite some time last night and that it probably would have taken him some time to fall asleep. They both wanted their darling boy to be able to sleep for as long as he wished, and thus failing to see the hypocrisy of their judgement towards others. 

The pair of them figured they should simply step into the dining room and see if there would be anything for them to eat. They had not been invited into thekitchen, as of yet, and were therefore a little apprehensive about what to do. The pair of them cautiously stepped downstairs and moved towards the diningroom. As Petunia entered the room however, with Vernon at her heels, she happened to run into a young child it appeared. The girl was so ugly and skinny that Petunia thought she was looking at a ghost at first. She had became so startled at the sight of her that her first reaction was to give the room an ear-splitting scream. The creature before her appeared to be the most pitiable child she had ever laid her eyes on. Vernon immediately stepped in front of his wife and was ready to fight the abnormality off them at once if it tried any funny business! He urged the thing to step away from him and his wife or he would phone the police immediately!

Petunias loud shriek had stirred both Dedalus, Hestia and Ax to rush into the dining room to see what had been causing the commotion. The two Dursleys was all in a tremor. They had been encountered with a young house elf and she did not know what on earth she had done wrong and started cry. She did not mean to upset them all in any way and kept apologising over and over again to them in earnest. Luckily, old Ax knew the young elf pretty well and managed to calm her down a little before adressing the Dursleys.  

This time Hestia and Dedalus had their hands full with the Dursely couple, making them understand that this young elf was a part of the household there and that they would need to get used to both her and the rest of her family because they all were going to spend some time in the same house. As it happened, Poppys family had also come running to the rescue from all of the turmoil, and was clustering together in the doorway looking utterly stunned about the whole situation. In addition they had never met any muggles at all in their entire lives before, and the little they knew about them was that they would be afraid of their breeding. In addition they knew that muggle humans probably could be behaving quite unreasonable towards them beond any measure of any witch or wizard. Therefore, house elves in general were forbidden to contact muggle humans or show themselves before them without having been particularly invited, which ofcourse never happened. The only reason Poppy the house elf had been present in the dining room had been because she had believed the Dursleys was still keeping upstairs to their own rooms.

There was nothing more to it than for Ax to introduce the house elf family to the two of them a little sooner than he had planned that day. He had wanted them to meet one at a time and perhaps to explain a little more closely about them first. He needed the two Dursleys to know they were not to be afraid of them and that they was never going to do them any kind of harm. On the contrary, they were a part of their protection more than anything else. He also told them that even though they resembled humans they were not. They were from a different breeding of magical creatures that was bound to their master or mistress by their own laws. Nevertheless, they were very much creatures with feelings, thoughts and personalities exactly like human beings, and as they could see, they very much resembled children even though they might be all grown up elves. In addition, Ax told them that they were the ones making all their meals, they were the ones cleaning the house and taking care of their clothes in addition to being the ones who carried out most of the other chores around the garden and on his farm. 

Petunia could not help herself but pursed her lips a little, simply because she did not think the cleaning of the house seemed to be all that much to brag about. It did not at all appear to be to her own excellent standards. However, she did not say anything about that at present. She was still trying to sort her feelings out about theese odd creatures. The way they all looked was all that pitiable she thought.  

Petunia and Vernon obviously had not been sufficiently warned about the house elves living there, or so it appeared. Ax had briefly been telling them about his house elves the previous evening, however the two Dursleys obviously had no idea what he could have meant, and this Vernon person had not been listening to him at all it seemed. Ax did not mention any of his thoughts regarding the matter.  He unfortunately, had always been presenting lousy first impressions of himself in his youth, and usually he had suffered rather badly for it. Therefore, he decided he wanted to give them both a chance to rectify their first impression of themselves for now.

To tell the truth, it had been the appearance of the young house elf that had startled Petunia the most. Indeed, they all looked like small children to her with a rather grotesque appearance. They somewhat looked like old people in children’s bodies, and this was not something neither Petunia nor Vernon was used to look upon every day. She had never seen such pitiable creatures in the whole course of her life, or so she thought at first. Except then she suddenly remembered that awful creature Harry and that tall wizard had brought into their living room at Privet Drive only a year ago. Coming to think of it, he had looked much the same as these ones. Except he had been so dirty and stubborn and grumpy that Petunia had a hard time to imagine that these ones even were of the same breeding. In addition, he had obviously been a lot older than this lot put together. Looking a little closer at them, she could see that this lot was not half as ugly as that horrendous creature of Harrys.  

Vernon though, was utterly nauseated by the mere looks of all of them. He felt they were all ugly, stunted children, too skinny to even be allowed. Their whole appearance was simply nothing he would like to see in the streets outside in the ordinary world, let alone be surrounded by anywhere in the world. Vernon Dursley liked people who looked neat, healthy, pretty and did not have any big different of appearance than the next one. He certainly was not sure he wanted to live in the house alongside these oddballs. The worst part of it was that he had actually witnessed one of them perform magic. Plates, cups and saucers had been flying across the room together with food on serving trays. The whole incident had happened so fast that it was hard to tell what exactly had been going on.  

Vernon started arguing with Hestia, Dedalus and Ax that they had a clear standing agreement from the day before. None of them was to use any magic in front of his family. He pointed a stubby finger at them, squinting his eyes as he told them that he knew they would not be able to keep their word. As if he had made some sort of a secret bet with them the previous day. To theese accusations Ax had to patiently remind him that neither Hestia nor Dedalus had been present in the room when the two of them had entered. It had only been the house elf girl present, and she did not know anything about the agreement they all had made the previous evening. Ax said that he could not help that the Dursleys had walked into the room when she was setting the table for them. He himself was so used to their magic by now he did not even notice it he said. Poppy had been ever so sorry to have caused such a distress and she certainly did not mean to have frightened any of them in any way. She had given them her sincerely apologies and there were nothing else Ax could do to undo what the two of them had witnessed.   

Petunia had actually been paying a little more attention to what Ax had told them about the house elves the previous evening. Therefore, she had calmed down a little sooner than her husband, and while he was arguing with the others, she had taken the opportunity to have a closer look at them all. She felt she pitied them for their looks, but then she remembered that they were house elves and not humans. She would have to think of them in a different way than if they actually were children. To her, the worst part was that they all looked like neglected kids with some sort of disability. However, when they spoke, all of them seemed human like in both understanding and the way they all talked. They appeared to be intelligent creatures and perhaps even kind, they seemed a little shy and actually really polite. 

All of this commotion forced them all to sit down and talk some more about their house rules and how things actually were going to work around the place. Ax was very firm on the fact that all of his house elves was to continue as they had always done, with their kind of magic to help them perform their every-day chores around the house and the garden. The Durselys would simply have to know about it and that would suffice he said. It was a totally different matter when it came to the witch and the wizard, they could fend for themselves. The house elves was bound to follow their masters bidding.

Ax explained to them that if a dangerous situation would happen to occur,but he had demanded his house elves not to perform any magic in front of the muggles, the whole Dursley family could be finding themselves in mortal danger, and the house elves would not be able to help them even if they had wanted to. Because of the restriction their master then would have put upon them. The bond between a house elf and his master was that severe he explained to them. No reasoning or pleading would be able to break it. This made Vernon Dursley see things in a little different light regarding theese odd creatures, and he would have to allow them keeping up with their stupid magic. He certainly wanted them to help him out if he happened to find himself in any dangerous situation. Ax also told them that house elves had some kind of different magic than humans did. The laws for a wizard using magic did not apply to a house elf. The house elves did not require a wand to perform magic, nor did they shout any inantations. Exactly what they did he did not know, but theirs were simply a good kind of magic he assured them. Vernon decided to himself that as long as theese odd creatures did not touch him or talked to him, he was going to allow it. 

His wife however, did not seem to quite share his immediate feelings. Petunia did not much like the way they appeared indeed. However, as soon as she had grown a little used to their appearance and found that they seemed kind and polite her opinion of them changed a bit. Petunia had secretly always wanted a little daughter herself, to dress up and make beautiful. This little Poppy elf was somehow cutely dressed, and this tiny little detail was what won Petunia over. She felt that she was not exactly afraid of them, but she still was not sure of what she felt about this tiny little strange looking family.

The five of them kept talking some more about magic in general and what the Dursleys would need to expect from living there. After all, the magical creatures living together with Ax did not know about anything else but the magical world. He told them they had never met anyone from the other world before in their entire lives, and asked the Dursleys to consider their meeting seen from their perspecitve. 

As they were talking everything over they, all more or less automatically sat themselves down so that the Dursleys could finally have their breakfast. Ax and the two wizards seemed to have been up and about for quite some time, to Vernons great astonishement. He had not heard any noises around the house at all that morning, and he had been sure that he would hear them going about on their business if they truely had been awake. How annoying that was. He did not like to be wrong about theese wizarding people. He had decided that they were good-for-nothing-people, just like his nephew Harry. Now they had somehow managed to be up and about without his knowlegde, and it somehow aggravated him.

Evantually when Vernon had had his breakfast and things had calmed down, Vernon actually told them about all the encounters he and his family had endured from all sorts of wild and dangerous wizards. He informed them that none of them had ever been any pleasant to them at all. Then he said that if he and his family truly were going to endure their stay there, at least the magical people would need to take some considerations for him and his family with this "wand-waving" of theirs. Hestia and Diggle were a little affronted by the way he chose his words, and told him to keep a civil tongue with them before they patiently repeted their agreement of beeing considerate with their use of magic. It was all mostly a confirmation of the agreement they had struck the day before, however Vernon obviously felt the need to be specific with them once more. 

Both Hestia and Dedalus were in general easy and laid back people to be around, and they wanted the Dursleys stay at the Bee Hive to be as pleasant and comfortable as they could possibly make it for them. Hestia repeated as a compromise that the Dursleys would have to comprehend that the place already were swarming with magic and even some magical creatures they had not met yet, lived there. These creatures was not to be hidden away or being told they would have to stop using their magic just because the Dursleys were there and their magic did not suit them all that much. The House elves could not do anything without it. Therefore, the Duresley family would have to knock on the door before entering the dining room in the future. In addition, they actually would need to try and get a little bit used to all the magic surrounding them in this place.


	12. Peter

Dudley entered the diningroom not knowing about anything that had taken place there that morning. Everyone simply greeted him a heartily good morning and invited him to come and sit down at the table to get something to eat. He did not notice his parents rather pale faces or the fact that the general mood in the room was somewhat a little bit strained.

Dudley sat himself down at the table to get his breakfast. Petunia automatically was about to get up and ask him what he wanted to eat when she remembered that she too was a guest in this house. That would not be her place to do there. Or at least not just yet.

Dudley remembered that Ax had mentioned he owed a whole family of House Elves the previous evening. Now Ax simply explained to Dudley that if he ever were to sit himself down at this table for a snack or a meal, food could magically appear infront of him out of thin air, however he sometimes needed to ask the plate for whatever he wanted. He also told him that he was not to be afraid of it. He said that it was a perfectly normal thing that could happen around there. He said that it simply was the magic of his House Elves. Now Dudley was about to understand a little bit more about what that would mean. As soon as Ax had finished explaining it all, a  plate of toast, egg, bacon and beans appeared in front of him on the table. All of it was fresh out of the fryingpan and smelled delicious. Together with a newly cooked pot of tea and a glass of cold orange juice. He looked at it stunningly for a second simply gaping at everything infront of him wondering if this actually just had happened. Then he looked around the table and saw Ax smiling and assuring him it was perfectly ok. He said that he was more than welcome to start eating whenever it soothed him. Even his mother nodded descreetly to him. 

Dudley could not help himself but grinned at the whole thing. Then he started to eat and everything was simply to his own satisfaction, as a matter of fact, there seemed to pop up more and more food on his plate as he ate, and he liked that even better. His parents sat with him and wanted to know how he had slept and so on while the other three left them alone after a little while. The three of them only wanted to assure that the youngest Dursley was not put-off by the little magic that regarded the food around there. So that they did not have another situation as they had had with his parents that morning.

Dudley on the other hand, found that he actually would like for the three of them to stay in the room so that he could talk to them a little more. He had been talking to his parents his entire life and he was not interested in doing so anymore. Especially not around this place where there were other, somewhat more interesting people to talk to. Dudley was after all rather curious about this secret world of Harrys.

After he had stuffed his face with rather too much to eat for breakfast, he went outside in the garden where Ax then was watering some flowers. Dudley already felt quite easy around him, perhaps it was because he knew he actually was not a wizard. Dudley could just feel that Ax was not someone to fear. Even though he perhaps looked a little sinister at first sight. However, Ax's calm behaviour made him a rather interesting and a pleasant man to be around, Dudley found.

Arabrax Bricklehurst sincerely liked the idea of having the company of a Muggle family around his house. Even though the parents seemed a little rigid about the use of magic. He was sure they would come around it soon enough. For heavens sake, they were the only living relatives of Harry Potter. He himself was so used to magic by now he did not even think about it for a second. He was convinced they would come around to like it there eventually, just as he had done. What differed the Dursleys from most other muggles, in Ax´s opinion was that theese three already was so deeply informed about the existing of the wixarding world that it would not be too dangerous to reveal a little more. However, as young Dudley had divulged only the previous evening the Dursleys did not seem to know all that much about Harrys life after all. Ax and his two magical friends had all counted upon Harry to have told them something or other about his life, however now it seemed he had not, for some reason or other of his own.

Ax really had not been leading a very social life up until now, and this was a nice diversion indeed to his solitary life. He had immediately taken to liking Dudley Dursley when he had opened up his heart and thoughts to them about his experiences and his fears. Ax felt that Dudley reminded him alot about himself when he himself had been a young boy. He had also been a litttle afraid of magic. His family had tried their best to test his magical skills when he was a toddler to see if he was magical, without any results at all. The only thing he was left with was that they had been giving him several and permanent mental scars because of it. He had been hexed in so many different ways that he thought he probably had a world-record on it. Therefore he felt he could relate to Dudleys fear on a certain level.

Ax brought young Dudley Dursley with him round the garden and told him a little bit about it, when he all of a sudden told him that he wanted to introduce him to someone that was a little bit magical. Dudley started a little when he first heard this, who would he introduce him to? Were there more people around the place that he had not yet told them about? What if they were dangerous?It was as if he had not been paying any attention at all during breakfast. His mind kept popping up images of thoose red headed twins in their green leather jackets, making snide remarks about him at Kings Cross back then.

When Ax saw his puzzeled face he stopped in his tracks and told him that he would need to explain something to him firstly; When his great aunt Tilly had lived there, she had a little experiment of sorts with a potion. In fact it was an engorgement potion, which she had tried out on some of the bumble bees that had setteled in her garden. She loved her bees, but the poor things were so teeny-tiny and she could not see them very well because of her poor eyesight. She was getting tired of almost squashing them everytime she sat down in her garden chair or whenever she wastending her garden. Thus she fed them with the engorgement potion and the bees became the size of a little bird. Then she could at least see them properley. However, after a while she sensed that some of the bees sometimes wanted to tell her something, and she could not understand whatever it was they wanted to say. She therefore decided that she would simply have to give them all voices too, so that they could tell her whatever was the matter. And so she did. This proved to become quite handy actually, because the bees was inspecting all of her flowers every day, and they now could convey rapport if anything was the matter in the garden. Thus she could easily mend any plant or bush that needed it. This was indeed a geniuos idea, because now they could cooperate quite easily, and as a result of all of this the garden and its surroundings became as flourishing and lush as Dudley could see it before him there, Ax told him.

Ax now led Dudley over to the very same garden-gate that they had entered through the previous day, and he told him that the huge grey boulder they had stopped by on the outside the day before, actually was not a stone at all. In fact it was one of the hives his bees lived in. The bee hives was also the reason this place was called the Bee Hive, another invention of his great old aunt. Ax also explained about the note they had to read the previous evening. He said to him that he and his family was allowed to enter his garden only because of that note.

He told thim that the house and farm he lived in had been made unplottable. That ment that nobody would ever be able to find it. He told him that he was its secret-keeper for as long as he was alive. That meant that he would be the one to be giving up the secret if the spell were to expire. The note they had been reading was a magical one, and that only people whom had been reading it could ever be able to see the house. So if anybody, friend or foe, came around theese tracks they simply could not find the place because it was so well magically hidden. As long as nobody of the ones living there brought anyone along with them trough the garden fence, they would all be safe and sound. That was how well they were hidden. Dudley liked this bit of magic alot, and eased up even more after hearing this. He actually thought it was quite cool.

He then told Ax that he really would not mind seeing some more magic, as long as nobody hexed him. He even told Ax about the bath he so bravely had taken earlier that morning. Ax chuckled and said that the trick was simply to let those hands have their way and not to panick, because they would never ever hurt anybody. He told him that he had reacted in the exact same way Dudley had done when he first moved in. Except perhaps he had been a little bit more prepared for it seeing as he knew his aunt a little by reputation, and he actually came from the magical world to begin with.

Finally Ax and Dudley approached the bee hive. Ax asked Dudley if he was ready to meet someone he himself was very fond of? Dudley felt a little apprehensive but nodded all the same. Ax then spoke in a soft voice, saying; ”Hello Peter, will you please  come outside for a minute? Here are someone I`d like for you to meet.” Suddenly, out of a big black hole sitting on what still looked like a huge grey boulder to Dudley, came a bumble bee the size of a canary bird. He had a very pointy nose, bright blue eyes and a round big belly with black and yellow stripes around it. He was wearing the teeniest little brown leather vest just like the one Ax had. In addition, he had a tiny little brown beret on top of his head to really make him stand out from the crowd from the rest of the bees. The bumble bee called Peter noticed Dudley and said ”Hello” in a very squeaky, but merry voice indeed. Exactly like the one Dudley had been dreaming about the previous night. All of this was simply too much for him to handle. It actually made him faint and he fell to the ground with a rather loud thud. Dudely was not, after all, as sufficiently prepared for more magic as he had thought he had been. 

When he came around half a minute later, the bumble-bee were still there, and some of his friends had even arrived as well. They all looked down at Dudley with great concern as if he was very ill or something. Then the bumble-bee called Peter actuallly asked Ax if he should go and fetch a little honey for him to revive the boy completely. However Ax simply shook his head, smiled a little and said that it would not be nessecary, he had only just had a bit of a shock. Ax apologized to Dudley and said he thought he would be sufficiently prepared for him by then. This time around it was Ax´s turn to tell Peter and his friends that it was not at all normal for Dudley to see talking, oversized bees.

Peter however, seemed to become quite a bit affronted by this note and retorted that he only had a little bit of a summer belly that´s all, thank you very much. He firmly told Ax not to call him fat again as he crossed his arms in front of his chest to make a statement. Ax chuckled and shook his head. Then he sincearly apologised to Peter and promised that he had not meant that he was fat, only that all of his bees was in a different size than Dudley was used to seeing and that was probably the reason why young Dudley there had fainted. Peter then uncrossed his hands and with an understanding «oh», then he wiggled his tale a little to rid himself of the uncomfort of revealing such insecurity about himself. He had wanted to appear as the coolest bee of them all at the Bee Hive, to this new aquaintance infront of him.

After listening to this conversation, Dudley smiled a little, got up off the ground, and felt a little embarrassed that he actually had fainted. He also found that he quite liked this bumble-bee called Peter. He seemed to be quite ok really. He instantly felt that he could relate to his reaction for beeing called fat.He had after all been rather large all his life himself, and he had never liked peoples snide, however sublte remarks of his size. This time however he knew that was not Ax´s intention at all, he had been right about himself not beeing used to seeing bees in this kind of size at all! Dudley felt that even though Ax had told him about Peters size it was a totally different thing so see him for the first time for real.

After Dudley had been properely introduced to Peter and his friends, Peter asked them if it was ok for him to come along with him and Ax when he was going to show Dudley around the place some more. Neither Dudley nor Ax had any objection to that. Dudley asked them how many bumble bees were enlargened around the place. Ax told him that there were seven Bee Hives in that size, and that there lived twelve bees in each bee hive, so that made eighty four enlargened bees all together. They all had been given the same kind of treatment by his old aunt Tilly. In addition, they all had been given names. However Peter was the only one of them really wanting to wear something resembeling garments at all. This made him stand out from everyone else and he simply loved that. Peter told Dudley that there were other bees as well that had not been enlargened. However, they lived outside the garden fence in the woods, and they were all distant relations to them. He told them they cooperated quite nicely despite the difference in size and the fact that they actually could talk to humans.

Peter was not what you would call a normal bee, even by the Bee Hive standards. Usually the only thing a bee were interested in was to collect honey, care for the infant bees, tend the queen bee and rapport back to Ax if there were something wrong with a flower, or a tree or a whole area of the garden. However, Peter was more interested in the people and the house elves living at the Bee Hive. He was a good friend of Ax´s, and some of the house elf children. Now that he had met his first real living muggle he had so many questions about ordinary muggle things that he hardly knew where to start. Things like; how did an aeroplane function. How ever could a boat stay afloat? Ax actually had to stop him from bombarding Dudley with all of these questions. He told him he would have plenty of time for that later. Right then Ax wanted to tell Dudley about everything that he needed to know about the Bee Hive and perhaps introduce him to everyone who lived there.  Dudely himself had expressed a wish to explore the garden more profoundly when he had entered it that morning. Therefore Ax led the two of them around the place make him aquainted with this new place he was going to stay at.

 


	13. Introductions

Ax then led them inside a cute white gazeebo standing on a ledge of the garden. He told Dudley that this very spot was his and his old aunt Tillys favourite place in the entire world. It was situated on the very egde of it and had the best view from the entire garden. It was overlooking the whole valley below, even though the valley was not very deep, it was quite wide and lush with different kind of trees and plants. The view was quite an impressive one from up there. Even Dudley, who initially was not very interested in any kind of nature scenery, could easily see why Ax and his aunt had loved this spot so much.

You could see all the little streams of water coming together adjoinng into a river at the very bottom of the valley. The river below slowly bent and stretched through the valley and smoothed itself out wider and wider until it ended in the ocean a fair few miles further away from them. The ocean however they could not see from there. The whole valley seemed to be completely untouched by humans and Dudley wondered where in the world this place actually was situated. Ax told him that this was at the very tip of the south of Wales on a little island called Ynys Dewi. It was sitting in the middle of a Nature Resevoir, and muggles never usually travelled there. Nor were people ever allowed to build anything there. Except his aunt Tillys old family had taken it to be their own little place in the world for a very long time ago. They had made it muggle repellent back in those days, he said. That meant that your ordinary muggle would not be able to stumble upon the place, because it had been given a charm that made them forget why they were there, and they would remember that they had to be somewhere else. That led them simply to leave the place alone all together. Dudely thought the whole idea incredible brilliant. He asked if that charm would work for witches and wizards too? Ax told him that it did not, but reassured him that they had all kinds of different other enchantments to keep magical people away, and told him not to worry about it.

Inside the gazeebo a bench was placed right next to the enterance, it was covered with cushions in all sorts of different merry colours and several assorted sized garden chairs. There was three different small side tables in white, maya blue and corsage pink. There was all sorts of different pillows and blankets, and flowers were hanging from pots from the roof, sitting in vases or culing upwards on a couple of the pillars. It looked exactly like a very creative woman had just been decorated it. Peter told Dudley that it was Poppys doing. She loved the gazeebo and took it upon herself to decorate it every day as she wanted to. Dudley seemed utterly befuddled with his mentioning of a Poppy, and asked him who that was. Ax then said he needed to tell Dudley about the house elves that lived there with them. Because his parents had been introduced to them rather roughly before breakfast that morning and he wanted Dudely not to be as startledwith them as his parents had been. 

Ax explained to him about the whole family of house elves living there. He said that they were all magical creatures. They helped him around the place and would be the ones who took care of them regarding the food, clothes, warmth during the winter and so on. They had also had agreed to be protecting Dudley and his family from harm if it ever would become necsessary. Ax had inherited them all from his old aunt Tilly. He then wanted to tell Dudley the story of how they came to live there;

Back in the days his aunt Tilly had taken in a young house elf named Cookie whom had been freed from her mistress because she had been caught tasting the custard she was about to serve her. All Cookie had wanted to do was to make sure it was all right before serving it, however her mistress had been an evil old witch whom had become a little mad and paranoid at the end of her days. She did not know what she was doing half the time. She was so angry with her young elf that she had set her free. Once she had freed her house elf there was no way for the elf to return to the position. Ax told Dudley that it was a great shame for a house elf to be freed from their owners. They hardly ever found proper work again. And that unfortunately, often meant that they shrivelled away and died. All the pride and joy a house elf would aquire in the world was to be serving a master or mistress, working hard, and keeping their owners happy.

Cookie had been beaten quite severely when Tilly had found her, either from her old mistress, or she had done it to herself to make sure she was sufficiantly punished. The house elves strickt laws dictated that they could be given penalties, and some wizards abided the law striclty and felt they were compelled to give them a lot of corporal punishment. This elf had barely been alive when his old aunt Tilly had found her. Tilly brought her back to the Bee Hive where she had nursed and cared for her. She then had asked Cookie if she would like to live there with her as a free house elf. She did not have anywhere else to go, and recognized this as a kind gesture.

Cookie was indeed cast down for a very long time. However, old Tilly treated her with love and respect. Slowly but surely Cookie became stronger and learned that to be a free elf at the Bee Hive could make her life worth living again and the way Tilly had treated her with kindness made all the difference to her in the world, if she were going to live or die.  After some persuasion from Tilly she decided to live and be happy for as long as she stayed there, or for as long as her new mistress would have her. His aunt Tilly prohibited her elf to ever punish herself again. She never had been a believer in any kind of corporal punishment or penalties. As the young elf regained her health again she turned out to be an excellent cook and Tilly herself disliked cooking in general. Therefore she let her have free reign of the kitchen and found that this was an exellent arrangement indeed. She grew a beautiful friendship with this young elf-girl and with time Tilly became to love her as her own daughter. She had no children of her own and had had some regrets about that during her solitary life earlier. Now she had both company and someone to care for as a family member. Then ofcourse later she heard about her squib nephew Ax, and asked him to come and live with her as well. Ax told Dudley that he had loved the place from the beginning and befriended Cookie the house elf immediately.

After some time living there, Tilly decided she would like to se Cookie happily set together with a male house-elf. In addition, she herself could really need some help with the mantaining of the farm. Young Arabrax had no experience with animals what so ever yet. In addition, he was not a magical person. That made him able to only do certain things around the place, at least for the first couple of years when he had been so young. As Tilly never had married, she found that this were also some small regret on that note. If she had ever had a husband, he would be the one to milk the cows and the goats, feed the pigs and work with the horses. She had always thought she would be able to manage everything herself. However, as time passed she realized she would like to have some time to relax and simply enjoy her garden and all her flowers and the bees. Besides she now had young Arabrax to look after as well. 

Therefore, she decided that in aquiring a male house elf, he would be a perfect solution to both of her wishes.  So, after quite a search, Tilly found a young house elf boy called Dig whom came from an ancient house elf-line from Scotland. Seeing as he was the youngest elf of his siblings he had some trouble finding proper work around the area. Besides, he had always loved the outdoors, and usually a house elf had to be cooking, ironing, and serving for his master. Young Dig was not particularly good at that he had found. Besides, all of the good posts in the area was taken by his older brothers and sisters. However, in the end, he was the one who ended up getting the best position in the UK, right there with Tilly. He even got the opportunity to live with a wife of his own. That was a true luxury not many house elves was ever able to enjoy. Dig fell for Cookie as soon as he laid eyes on her. She was just perfect to him. She knew how to cook better even than his own mother could, and that was saying something. Cookie on the other hand took a while longer to fall for Dig. However, he managed to play his cards right, and took his time with her. He wooed her for a proper amount of time, and with some small portion of guidance from Tilly he finally managed to win Cookie over.

At that point Dig was the happiest elf in the world. Tilly told Dig that he could now live as a free house elf if he wished, and he could start a family of his own there at the Bee Hive. However Dig was a little more than sceptical to becomeing a freed elf at first, however he had fallen so much in love with Cookie already, and saw how happy she was around his new mistress, he slowly but surely was convinced that this was the way to live life from then on. He noticed that they both were treated with respect beond what any house elf was accustomed to, and Dig ended up trusting his mistress more than he ever thought possible. Tilly even arranged a proper wedding for the two of them. The flowers Dig produced for that day was absolutely stunning. He had put together huge red and white roses as large as his own head, seeing as he was an exellent gardener, he had decorated the garden like you would never believe. His huge roses was making an archway above them inside the gazeebo where Tilly herself performed the sceremony. That evening Dig did something a house elf that was used to enslavement never did. He made fireworks pop out of his ears due to his immence happiness. Theese fireworks were much lagrer and prettier than humans could make or had ever seen. They were like huge red heartshaped soap-bubbles that grew bigger and bigger until they popped and were reborn again, and they went on and on in the sky all through the night. 

Dig started a tradition with his wife after they had married. Every evening of the full moon he treated his wife with a wonderful bouquet of red roses, and took her for a walk in the moonlight. Tilly was very satisfied indeed with both of her house elves. They fulfilled eachother and helped her with all the things she needed the most help with around the house and garden. While she herself could take all the time she wanted to spend in her garden. Ax told Dudley that he himself had been watching all of their elf-children growing up, and they and his aunt certainly had become his true family in this world.

The two house elves, Dig and Cookie, produced many children. The first two kids was boys called Button and Cork. They were now about 20 and 18 years old, and they both worked at Hogwarts school of Wichcraft and Wizardry, he proudly told Dudley. Button was one of the house elfs mending school robes and ironing clothes, and Cork was a part of a team cooking food for all the students, he had turned out to be just as exellent a cook as his mother, and seeing as Professor Dumbledore never really had been very strickt with his rules on the schools house elves, he had always let them visit their families every so often. Therefore the two of them had plenty of contact with their family and kept popping up at the Bee Hive every once in a while.

Next in line they got a baby girl whom they named Poppy, she truly was her fathers gem and he would have had such a hard time parting with her that Ax and Tilly decided when she was very young they would gladly keep her with them at the Bee Hive, dusting and cleaning the house.

Three years after Poppy was born Dig and Cookie gave birth a son they called Puffy. He turned out to become very different in his ways from all the others in his elf-family. He certainly was not happy to be a freed elf, and went into service as soon as he was old enough to do so. He was utterly ashamed of his whole family for living at the Bee Hive as elves. Therefore he spent his days with a wizarding family in Dublin, and he had never contacted them ever since.  None of them ever believed they would see him again. Presumably he worked hard and was happy there.

Some years after Puffy had left them. Cookie came down with another baby boy whom they named Bumble. He became his mothers love of life. He was simply the happiest elf alive and gave his mother the biggest joy in hers. He had been born five years ago and Ax was ever so sorry that his old aunt Tilly had passed away only four months before he was even born. Ax dearly wished she would have met him.

This meant that, at the Bee Hive, Ax now kept four house elves with him all in all. Dig, Cookie, Poppy and little Bumble. Ax told Dudley that they all had different chores around the place. Dig helped him with the farm and garden in general. All the maintaining of the animals and the vegetables was his main chores. Therefore he would usually be found outdoors and with the animals. 

Cookie was the Bee Hives exellent cook. He boasted that she could outshine all the famous chefs in the whole wide world, he simply could not praise her skills enough. Naturally she was usually to be found in the kitchens.

Poppys chores was to be cleaning the house and washing clothes, picking berries and fruit and so forth. She also liked to decorate different places, like the gazeebo, and the front porch. She usually helped her mother out in the kitchen if there were something special at hand.

Little Bumble usually liked to help his father outside, or else he kept to the kitchens with his mother.

Ax added that he himself loved them alldearly and they truly was his family. He sincerely hoped that Dudley would like to befriend them all as he had done when he was a young boy.

Ax told Dudley that he would probably soon meet with them all, and told him that they might all be misstaken for young children at first sight. Usually all enslaved house elves wore tea towels, old pillowcases or some other sorts of ragged fabric as clothing. However Ax told him that his aunt Tilly wanted them all to wear proper clothes, since Cookie had been freed and presented with clothes to begin with. Or at least the ones whom lived at the Bee Hive.

For an elf to wear clothes ment that they were not enslaved. Most house elves was utterly discusted by the very thought of beeing presented with clothes. Dig was very dissapointed indeed when he found out he was about to become a free elf, and it took him quite some time to don his clothes. However, when their first baby boy was born he had put on his clothes and was wearing them as if he had been doing it his entire life. He was going to be a father figure to his children, and he did not want his beautiful wife to be ashamed of herself. Because she was the reason Tilly wanted him to wear clothes too, so that she did not feel so much like an outsider of sorts. 

Button and Cork now proudly wore the tea towel uniforms at the school with the Hogwarts crest on them. They did not mind going into service at Hogwarts, because they knew it was a good post to be at. Seeing as the house elf children was born from freed house elves they were able to decide when they came of age if they wanted to go into service or if they would prefer to live as free elves themselves. Usually they choose to go into service. Except every now and then you could stumble upon an oddity who would prefer to live as a free elf. He told Dudley that Cookie still was very much ashamed of herself for beeing freed, and it had made her want to retreat to the kitchens everytime people outside of the family came to visit. Except Ax had pleaded with her to come out and about and meet the Dursley family as they were going to stay there for some time. He thought she would join them in the evenings and at meals eventually though.

Ax explained that Dudley probalby would not meet the two oldest brothers just yet. First he would be introduced to the ones living there with him at the Bee Hive. He had barely finished talking about meeting with them when Dudley noticed a little girl picking flowers barefoot and humming to herself at the oposite side of the garden. She had a flower garland on top of her head and wore a faded pink, rather old-fashioned cotton dress with short puffs sleeves. Ax soon took notice of her too and told Dudley that she was the one they called Poppy. He wondered if Dudley would mind if Ax introduced him to her. Dudley was quite curious about her so he nodded. Ax asked Peter if he could fly and fetch her. Soon enough she walked over and joined them at the gazebo. 

Dudley could not help himself but stared at her with his mouth hanging slightly open. No matter how much Ax had talked about them Dudley had not expected her to look like this. It was all Dudley could do not to run away screaming for his mother in panick. He took some deep breaths and calmed himself a little. He then looked at her a little closer. She almost looked like an old lady, with somewhat stretched skin hanging over her bones. Studying her a little as she was approaching them, she was not exactly ugly though. Although she looked rather different from any human Dudley had ever seen. Here, this creature was walking towards him in a dress just like a little child. He somehow could not help feeling that she reminded him of someone he had once met before, but could not remember exactly who at that moment. He had to pull himself together and closed his mouth as she stopped next to Ax. He made the introduction and Dudley, a little hesitant, shook her hand. She smiled at him shyly and told him, in a high squeaky voice, that it was a pleasure to finally meet him. She blinked rather frequently and kept batting her eyelashes. Dudley realized that she actually could be a little charming when she started to speak. 

Ax told her that he had been telling Dudley about her family and how they had got to stay there with them. He also told Dudley that if they had been living with an ordinary wizarding family he would not be able to see them much, because house elves were supposed to go about their work unseen. Howerver, both he and Tilly, liked their company and wanted to have them around as much as possible, so this family did not know about anything else. Especially the house elf children. They were not used to be hiding from people, especially due to the fact that Ax rarely had much company. So he told Dudley he would soon get used to seeing them all the time and he hoped very much he would befriend them all. 

After Dudley had recovered from his first startled impression and had thought about it a little, he might concider actually looking forward to that. Poppy certainly seemed to be nice enough. He really did misstake her to be only a young child at first, however, it took her only a second or two to loose her shyness, and when she started to speak she revealed that she certainly was no child. She appeared to have a good head on her sholders, and was nice to talk to. She also represented a diversion from all the adults surrounding him. However, out in the real world Dudley would probably have made fun of such a person for looking so differently, and perhaps he even would have bullied her together with his friends. Nevertheless, there was no reason for any of that here. Perhaps later on if he got bored he could mock her for something if he got the chance. But for now he decided he actually found her a little interesting. She was after all from the magical world.

Poppys eyes was big and blue with long eyelashes sitting on her eyelids, her eyeshad a certain merryment in them, almost like you would expect a joke from her anytime. She had a cute little freckled nose that was standing up a bit, and a pair of large front teeths in her otherwise teeny tiny mouth. The effect actually made her look a little bit like a rabbit. She had high, a little blushed, cheeckbones and blonde thin medium long hair. Her ears was round, and somewhat shaped like a drop that was about to fall. Her feet was bigger than a humans and she had only four toes Dudley noticed. Her hands was somewhat larger that a humans too, and just like her toes, she only had four fingers. Otherwise she could be misstaken for a human, and from behind she looked exactly like a young thin human girl at the age of five. 

After only a little while sitting there talking to Poppy, Dudley noticed a huge serving tray with something floating through the garden towards them at the gazeebo. His mouth had fallen open once more, and this time Poppy quickly took the opportunity to mock him about it. She asked him if he was dying from thirst or just stunned at the sight of her mother? Dudley blushed hard. He had not realized he was that obvious. He had been looking at the huge trey at first, then he had noticed the little woman carrying it. She was balancing it on top of her hand, stretched right up over her head, and it looked like the tray of limonade, biscuits and fruit weighed about twice as much, or more, as the person carrying it. Dudley had been so impressed that his jaw had fallen to his chest. Cookie, Poppys mother, had the same nose, cheeckbones and haircolour as Poppy, but she had straighter teeths than Poppy. And she had big green eyes, however she did not have quite as long eyelashes as Poppy and she certainly did not bat them around as much. She wore a grey oldfashionded house-maid dress with a white full-apron over it, wich was hugging her body around her waist. She had blonde long hair put up in a tight bun on top of her head. She was actually rather plump compared to Poppy, allegedly since she had given birth to five children. It also might have something to do with her beeing a wonderful chef, and was now allowed to properely taste the food she prepaired herself before serving it. She had the same hight as Poppy, and Dudley found she was actually rather nicely curved. Cookie put down the tray and then she too was introduced to Dudley, she bowed infront of him at the same time as she gave him a deep curtesy. Dudley was a little surprised and taken aback about it all, but thought her incredible polite to do so. It made him feel quite Royal. She too had a squeaky voice he heard, when she told him it was nice to meet him. However this was all she said to him. She did not stay with them at the gazeebo but placed the contents of her tray on a little side-table, excused herself by bowing deeply too her master, and went back inside the house. Dudley felt himself blushing a little and he did not understand why. He found Cookie kind of pretty, but not like he was attracted to her or anything. He could clearly see that she was not a human. He simply liked the way she was curved that was all.

Dudley, Ax, Poppy and Peter stayedat the gazeebo for a little while, they ate some fruit and biscuits and drank the limonade. He wanted to get properly aquainted with theese strangers whom he found quite interesting in their own different way. Dudley also felt like voicing his amazement at Cookies strength and did so when he was sure she was out of earshot. Ax told him that houes elves may not look like much, but stronger and fiercer creatures could hardly be found. He also announced that they were the most loyal creatures on earth.If one befriended them like he had done, one would have loyal friends for the rest of their life.

Dudley really liked it there so far. He had never in his life been at a place he thought was more interesting in the world. He found these magical creatures very cool indeed. Ax were right about Poppy, she was funny and really easy to be around. Dudley soon forgot why on earth he would even consider making fun of her. She turned out to be totally different from what he first had thought she would be. He found her to be quite witty actually. She had a knack of speaking before thinking, and had the amazing ability to make people laugh at themselves or at her when she tried to be funny. She did talk alot, but Dudley thought that at least it would not be completely boring and quiet all the time around there. Besides both Poppy and Peter the bumble bee was rather interested in Dudley and what it was like to be a muggle outside in the big and dangerous world. Dudley never could restist talking about himself, so he answered all of their questions quite willingly.

After a while Ax wanted to tell Dudley about the garden and the rest of the farm. He said it was his and Digs mutual pride and joy. The two of them, together with his aunt Tilly had worked in it for years and years to make it this pretty. The garden surrounding the house contained of a mixture of flowerbeds, wilderness, apple-, plum- and pear-trees besides several bushes of assorted berries, in addition to different colours of lilacs, roses, tulips and rhododendron bushes. So the first impression was that it all looked perhaps a little unorganized and possibly a little overgrown, however still charming sort of speak. There was several hiding places, nooks and secret benches overlooking the house and garden both behind and in front of the house. There was a little hill and more woodland behind the house. All of the surrounding trees would hide the place entirely from view in every direction. Dudley found the garden incredible exciting. He had never given any garden this much thought in his entire life. Their own garden back at Privet Drive was plain and utterly boring compared to this one. Even though he knew his mother somehow took great pride in it. He hoped she would enjoy this garden too and find pleasure in staying there because of it. 

Dudley could hardly wait to explore it all, and asked Ax all sort of questions about it. However, Ax did not turn out to be quick enough to give an answer, because Poppy and Peter was competing to answer his questions. The three of them ended up running around all over the place to show him around. Peter was ofcourse flying. Dudley noticed that he did not mind beeing the only human amongst the three of them. Soon enough he did not even think about it any more. Peter and Poppy talked to him all the time and clearly found him as interesting as he found them and the garden. Never to this day, nothing could ever impress him more than people who found him interesting. He was used to people finding him a little intimidating with his size and all the boxing titles. However here nobody knew about that yet and he soon forgot all about that. He almost felt like he was a totally different person from the boy he had been when he had been living at Privet Drive all together.

You could not see the entire size of the place properely from the garden surrounding the house. There was alot more of the property on a lower ledge, you only had to find the entrance that would lead you down a paved staircase made of stone. Having explored the different garden nooks on the main level for a while Dudely all of a sudden was standing in front of a garden-gate he had not seen before. This one was not as grand as the one they had entered the previous evening. This one was grey from wear and tear by the weather. It was also quite low and had a special handle to open the gate. Poppy told him that he was supposed to just press the handle towards him, swing open the gate and let it go, and the gate would pop right back into its groove. The three of them followed the stonesteps that carved itself down into the second, nevertheless more important garden to the house-hold. This was the place where Ax and Dig grew all of their vegetables and herbs.

When Ax first had moved there his aunt Tilly had put up a greenhouse for their herbs. Tilly had done some of her marvellous magic to it as she had made it huge on the inside. When you approached it from the outside it looked like a small, old worn-down greenhouse, but as you stepped through the door, you entered into a large open space like the size of a ballroom. It had high vaulted celing with both roof and walls made out of glass and heavy dark wood. Dudley was stunned into oblivion at how cool he found it all. He could hardly believe it. He had to pinch his arm a couple of times to check that he was not asleep. He walked around the greenhouse and kept repeating the word "woow". Poppy told him that Ax and her father grew all sorts of tomatoes in there. Ax just loved his tomatoes Peter said. There was the usual things you could find in a greenhouse like all kinds of different salads and more fragile vegetables like bell pepper, cucumbers, ginger, hot pepper, and avocado. He also actually had a couple of small peach trees growing in there together with squashs, olives and eggplants. Then he had all sorts of strange herbs that usually was hard to find outside in the UK like chilli, oregano and aloe vera plants. Most of them would end up in the kitchen for cooking, others would be made into healing potions for both people, elves and animals. But they could also be made into potions that would benefit the different plants if necessary.

Outside there were different allotments containing potatoes, broccolies, corn, green bean, aspargus, turnips, beetroots, raddishes, carrots, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, fennel, spinage, leek, peas, garlic, beans, onions, celeries, lettuce, artichokes and cabbages. In addition he were growing all sorts of different funny looking pumpkins in different types and sizes.

This level also had the enterance to the dwellings of the house elf family. Naturally they were free to use the entire house. But old Tilly back in the days, wanted them in addition to have their very own entrance as well, so that their family could come and go as they wished. Besides, it would make another enterance or exit for the rest of the house as well should she ever need it.

The property however, did not end there. You could even find yet another level further down from there. Down another set of stone step staircaces you would find a barn and a stable, amogst other out-houses. They kept a fair few animals. Down here Dudley met with Dig, the house elf father. He did not shake his hand either but gave him a deep bow as if Dudley were the king or something. Dudley found it all rather awkward, and did not know what to say. Ax however, whom had followed them down there, told him that this was the ordinary way for house elves to greet humans. He told him that Dig had been brought up very well indeed, and he was bringing with him strickt manners from his own family in Scotland, so whenever he met with new humans he always remembered his upbringing. Dig had taken off his hat when he bowed and revealed his red, short but bushy hair. Dudley had expected a sqeaky voice like Poppys and Cookies, however he was a little surprised when he heard Dig said it was nice to meet him in a rather deep manly croak with a Scottish accent. Dig had the same pertrouding front teeths as Poppy. He had a long meaty nose and many freckles. He had a set of large pointy floppy ears with a lot of red hair growing out of them, wich was typical for male house elves when they became properly adults. Dig was the tallest of the house elves and he was about the hight of an eight year old child. He wore a blue dungaree just like Ax´s and he had a red lumberjack-shirt underneath with his arms rolled up. He wore an old freyed straw hat and his huge and hairy feet was bare. 

Dudley found he liked him too. He seemed to be much the same type of person as Ax, Dudley thought, quite calm and laid back, however not very talkative at all. He was chewing on a straw and petting one of the horses. Now Peter whispered in Dudleys ear that heprobably would see Dig perform some magic. Peter told him that the house elfs magic differed from a witch and a wizard. House elves did not need a wand or any encantations. Their magic was silent, and they only had to do something with their hands. Peter then asked Dig to show Dudley how he would feed the horse. Dig waved his hands and hay appeared infront of the horses and quite neatly laid itself down into the manger. This kind of magic was really cool Dudley thought. This was not the dangerous kind of magic that would harm him.

Peter told him that the house elves only did magic to benefit people or animals or anything to do with inside the house or something like that. Poppy confirmed what he said and Dudely liked the elves even better after that. Dudley told her that he and his family really was afraid of magic because they had been put through so many incidents during the years. At this Poppy actually laughed at him and asked him if that famous Potter-cousin of his had been performing any magic on him? Dudley actually was a little confused at this, but disproved her on it. Harry never really had, had he? He had threatened him with magic many times, but he had never really harmed him. Poppy saw how serious he was about it and promised him she would never perform any magic on him. She was not allowed to do that anyway, even if she had wanted to, she winked and giggled at him. There was very strict laws against performing elf-magic against humans. She could be executed or something she said. On this note Dudely found he relaxed even more around her.

They continued to show him around the place and told him that there was a dozen chicken, five geese, a hog, a gigantic boar and twelve piglets. There were two bulls, five milking cows and right now only three calves, but more was to come quite soon Poppy said. They kept seven goats in adition to their baby goats, and then there was the two horses he had just met. So it really was quite a big farm. Ax told Dudley that they were completely self sufficient with all sorts of food. He and Dig took great pride in showing him around the farm and all of their animals and the fields. They liked to share the fysical work between them. But lately Ax were troubled with a little gouty limbs. So he sometimes had to take it a bit more easy. However the little elf-boy Bumble of five years oldhad become more than happy to help Ax and his father around the farm of lately. He was helping out whenever he could and was allowed to from his mother.At that very moment you could actually hear little Bumble laughing together with the goats up the hillside. Poppy asked if Dudley wanted to go up there to meet him too? Dudely certainly would.

Poppys energetic talking gave him a lot of information as they walked around the place. She told him about all the different animals they had and where he could find them in their own homes around the place as they walked up the narrow path to the goats. Their little barn was situated inside a huge enclosure a little further up the hillside of the valley, and you would have to walk a little to see them.

Dudley was sweating and breathing rather heavily by the time they reached the place. However, he hardly noticed, because he found all of it so incredible cool. Up here he met with little Bumble. He was certainly not a shy elf at all. He litterally jumped into Dudleys arms and gave him a huge hug right away. Then he laughed and said hello in the most high pitched voice Dudley had ever heard. He promptly told Dudley he liked him, patted him on the head as if he were a little child and then he jumped down from his arms and laughed some more. Poppy strictly told Bumble to behave himself, but he only looked at Dudley, shruged his shoulders and went to pat another baby goat. What a huge difference he was from his parents, Dudley thought. However, he liked Bumbles way the best he thought. Bumble was singing to the goats as he ran alongside the small ones up the hills. Even though he had much shorter legs than them he seemed to be able to keep up with their speed. Peter told Dudley that Bumble was using a little bit of magic for that. His short feet would not be able to run like that without it.

Dudley found that out of all the animals on the farm he liked the goats the best. He found them funny, a little wild and incredibly playful. One of the baby goats actually climbed up on top of his back when he squatted down to pet another one of them. He laughed so hard at it that Peter asked him if he were all right. Dudley had never experienced anything like this before in his life, and he found that he really liked it. He had only seen goats and other farm animals on tv before, and back then he had found them all rather boring. However, now he knew they were nothing of the sort.

Bumble also had red hair like his father, but he had straight teeths and a cute little nose in the middle of his merry face like Poppy. He had freckles on his nose too, and he also had freckles on his feet and hands Dudley noticed. He had big green eyes, just like his mother. Bumble was so small he could be the hight of a two year old toddler. Nevertheless he was always happy and kept bouncing about the place, making bumpy noises so that everyone could hear him coming. He too was wearing dungarees and a yellow jumper underneath. This made Dudley start to wonder if that was some sort of a male fashion at the Bee Hive, and wondered if he too needed to get a dungarree to be accepted. Then he shook his head  and remembered there were other men living there with them. After all his father and Dedalus Diggle were there too. And he could not imagine his father ever wearing clothes like that.

Peter gladly told Dudley about the two older house elf children what they all were like and so on. He also told him about Puffy, their second youngest son, whom now were about 12 years old. Peter told him that he looked exaclty as if he could have been Poppys twin, except he actually was three years younger. He would have short trimmed hair as was the custom for a male house elf in service. His personality somehow resembled his mother, except from his rigid wish to be an enslaved house elf. He definately was the most serious one of the house elves in his family. He wanted to work hard and had always had the belief that a proper house elf should not be freed. He felt like it were a discrase to be free, and had committed himself completely to his master and their family. He never visited them anymore, nor contacted them in any way.

Poppy told Dudley that she thought he was a real oddball, and that she did not miss him much at all. He had always been fighting with her about her work. He never thought much of her house keeping abilities, and never missed a chance to tell her so. She had only been glad to see the back of him the day he left them. The Bee Hive were a much more harmonious place to be living in, after he had left them she said. Her mother mourned him ofcourse, as any mother would. Allthough, Peter told him, house elves usually were not enjoying the privilege of raising a child for very long in general, so one could not compare her grief with a human mother grieving the loss of her child. It lasted only one or two weeks, and then she was back on tracks again. Peter told Dudley that at the Bee Hive Puffy was rather looked upon as the outcast of the family, and that was actually quite funny, because outside in the wizarding world this whole house elf family would be the odd ones, for living happily there as freed elves.

This entire House Elf family had a distinguished look about them compared to other house elves, Peter said. House Elves in general were very skinny indeed, but this family had somewhat a more healthy look about them. They had always been given a proper amount of food, and had free access to the pantry. In addition, of course, they all loved Cookies cooking. They all had roses in their cheeks from always beeing outdoors in the fresh air. Besides Ax´s love for them made them all happy and content with their lives.

They all loved beeing outside in every type of weather. Their father, beeing Scottish after all, had taught them that all kinds of weather was good kind of weather, and that there only existed different types of good weather. He had taught his children to appreciate nature as it presented itself, and so they did, except Poppy, she did not like the wind very much at all. It always ruffled her hair up. In addition it seemed to be impossible to do anything outside in the wind. She was also a little afraid that it would blow her away. Something that had actually almost happened when she had only been five years old Peter whispered in Dudleys ear.

Peter told Dudley that most house elves did not live and breed together. Most of them were not free elves but slaves to a master. There were many masters and mistresses that never treated their house elves any good at all. In spite of that, most house elves were happy and content as long as they would be serving a master or a mistress. However, Ax insisted on treating them with respect and equallity, and so had his old aunt Tilly done. Therefore the house elves at the Bee Hive were as happy as an elves could possibly be. Beeing freed they had even been given the opportynity to have their own salary. However they all had most definately declinde that. They did not want any money from their master, instead they had a longstanding agreement with his old aunt Tilly that they should take one day off work every month, and Ax had wanted them to continue this tradition.

What usually made a good house elf was that you did not notice them at all. However Ax liked the company they gave him thus his elves usually was hanging around him all the time. They ate meals togehter with him and shared his livingroom. However now that the Dursleys, Diggle and Jones were living there with them they had been determined to show them all that they were good and proper house elves and therefore had decided to stay well out of the way. At least during the first week, Peter winked at Dudley.

That evening after Dudley had gone to bed he suddenly remembered who Poppy had resembled when he first met her in the garden. He remembered that weird and ugly creature who popped up in their livingroom at Privet Drive the previous summer. When that tall white-haired old wizard had showed up on their doorstep to take Harry away for the summer. They had called the ugly small thing Kreacher he remembered. That one must have been a house elf too Dudley thought. Now that he had met Ax´s house elves Dudley realized it all. That one had been a stubborn old fellow with an enormous anger and spite in him. He had been skinny and old, with a croak just like Digs. Dudley had been so discusted with him that he had been trying to forget all about him. However now he started to wonder about him. Because he looked like a dirty old ragged hobo compared to Poppy and her family.Comparing them like this Dudley saw that Ax´s house elves were wery well nurtured and very well taken care of indeed. Harry had just inherited his elf and neither Harry nor the house elf seemed to like eachother much. Dudley wondered what had happened between them.

The next day Dudley talked to Ax about him, and he told Dudley that he propably were an enslaved house elf if he looked badly. He told him that they usually looked like that unfortunately. Dudley compared this house elfs personality to the house elves living there and Dudley found he really liked the house elves living there the best. He was happy they did not have the personality of that horrible creature of Harrys house elf. Dudley thought of each of the house elf at the Bee Hive, and figured that they were all very different in characters, but thought he liked the divercity in them. He also thought of Ax and could perfectly well understand him for wanting some company around the place and why he liked them all som much.


	14. Dudleys stuff

The second afternoon of Dudley and his familys stay at the Bee Hive Dudley realized that he had brought his computer and his small tv set to a place where there was no electricity at all. He had not even given it a second thought that they might be staying at such a place. In fact he could not, in his wildest imagination, believe that such a place even existed in the whole wide world. He was utterly befuddled with it and asked Ax how on earth he managed to survive without it. Ax sighed and smiled at him, as if he was reliving his time with the muggles, remembering how it was to be living with electricity.

Then he enlightened him on how they did it; For their cooking, frying and baking they used a huge wood stove in the kitchen. To keep the house warm and snug during the cold winters they lit all the fireplaces in the house every day. He told him that in the kitchen he even had something called a Mass Oven, wich had been designed to exploit the wood energy as much as possible while burning wood at a high temperature, after which the heat was disposed in the oven stone mass which gave a steady heat in a day time thereafter. Throughout all the floors in the house they had built in some sort of pipes that the heated smoke from the oven passed through and that actually gave warmth to the rooms that did not have any fireplace, like Dudleys bedroom for instance, and most of the upstairs rooms for that matter. This way he was able to take full advantage of the heat coming from that oven before any smoke left the chimney. It was a rather great invention actually.

For lighting up a room they could use candles, in addition to having more than a dozen or so gas lamps spread thorughout the house. If they needed anything else they would use magic. That is, his house elves would ofcourse. The house elves usually were the ones to make the fires going and lighing all the lamps. Ax told them all that he actually did have a couple of old matchboxes lying around somewhere, but he had not been in need of one for many years. However, he now realized that the Dursleys probably would need some matchboxes and promised he would find them and have them brought upstairs to their rooms. 

Some of the different gas lamps had all sorts of different colours in their glasses and it would give the room a cosy light in the evenings. There also were ordinary gas lamps with see through-glass to make more of a proper light, theese were put in strategic places all around the house. Ax said he had become so used to this way of living that he actually had not given electricity much thought since he had moved there. Even though he knew perfectly well all about how it worked outside in the ordinary world. Nowadays he managed quite fine without all of that. He even found it quite charming not to have any electricity at all. However, he realized that both the Muggle family staying with him and the Witch and a Wizard were all of them used to other, or more things than he himself was used to. 

For instance, both Hestia and Dedalus knew how to conjure up some sort of a portable blue flame, called a Bluebell flame. That was a portable, waterproof flame that did not run on anything but magic. You could even put it into a glass jar so that you could carry it around with you, and it would light up the room as if it was proper daylight outside. Ax liked theese blue flames very well indeed and thought they would become handy for them during the winter. 

The Dursley couple however, was indeed very sceptical to it and certainly did not want any of that in their part of the first floor. They proclaimed that it just was not normal! They announced that they would rather be using the gas lamps instead. That was at least something they could  relate to in some way.  Allthough Vernon did not much like anything oldfashioned. He very much liked the modern world and had very little to spare for this reactionary way of doing things. However he did not utter too much of his feelings about any of this as he did not want to be kicked out of there and into the real world to fend for himself.

Dudley on the other hand, liked that blue weird flame-thing quite well. He was rather facinated with it so he recieved a small jar of light to bring with him to his room from Hestia. This was ofcourse after both Poppy, Peter and Hestia carefully had explained to him, and had heartily assured him that it was not dangerous at all. He was told that it was even waterproof, and it was radiating only a little bit of heat if one held an object directly above it. Placed safely in the little jar it would be quite safe for him to bring with him.    

As a result of not having any electricity though, Ax did not have a telephone in the house either. Dudley was rather dissapointed by not even getting any kind of service on his mobile phone at all. However, instead of using a telephone Ax told them he had several owls he used for correspondence, for instance. Vernon snorted out loud and indignantly at this, he had been cursing every goddamn owl that had entered Privet Drive in the search of Harry, and here they told him he still was not done with them! Now they might even had to depend upon them for keeping in touch with the outside world! The whole thing was simply preposterous!  He found he really had a hard time accepting all of that for sure. He certainly started to hope that their stay at this house would be of quite a short duration!

Dudley realized that all the great plans he had for himself and his compter games all of a sudden went out the window. They were totally and utterly cut off from the rest of the world he thought. Ax did not even have a television-set, or even a radio. Dudleys heart sank to his toes. He had been looking forward to long evenings in front of the tv, watching his most favourite shows. He even tried the small tv he had brought with him upstairs in his bedroom. It actuallly did run on batteries, but he could not recieve any signals on it.  Dudley felt as if he was doomed. This was not going to be much fun at all he thought.

Dedalus picked up on his low spirits and asked him if perhaps he could have a little go on this small tv-set he had brought with him. He then informed him that he was a good friend of Arthur Weaslys who was rather famous in the wizarding world for enjoying anything that had to do with items from the Muggle world. That was the father of Harry Potters best friend, Ronald, he said.  Dudley knew all about that ofcourse. 

Dedalus told him that he and Arthur had been taking Muggle Studies together at Hogwarts and the both of them loved to kind of pick on muggle artefacts a little.

Dedalus was on a roll and told Dudley more about mr Weasly. He said that Arthur liked muggles so much that he had got himself a job at the Ministry for magic working with restoring muggle items that had been magically tampered with. People was not allowed to do so, especially since the artefacts seemed to find their way back to their rightful owners afterwards! The ministry had rather strict laws regarding this, and Arthurs job was to find them and straighten them out.

Nevertheless, Dedalus secretly always had felt that he himself were the cleverest out of the two of them on the subject, because he actually had recieved higher marks than him in their Muggle Studies classes. Arthur was mostly playing around with the things and thinking them all funny, not really getting the gist on how the things actually worked, nor how the muggles would be using them. Dedalus had been studying everything a little more intently, and as it happened, he had even been checking out tv sets in particular before, he told Dudley. He had actually almost got a job at a muggle tv-shop once. Except he had ruined it all on his first day by breaking all the tv sets in the shop. The owner, of course, only remembered him breaking about five or so of them. Still he had lost his job there. 

Afterwards Dedalus had realized it would not be as funny as he had imagined it would have been, working there. You see, he got into trouble with the ministry about it. Because he had modified the owners mind for breaking all those tv-sets. He could not continue to do so if he was going to be working there he was told, or his bosses mind would be comprimised. However, he had brought with him a few of the discarded tv sets home and had studied them more intently on how they actually worked. That was why he now thought he might have a go with Dudleys little tv set, if he did not mind. Dudley sighed and shrugged, agreeing to it. He thought he might as well give Dedalus a go as not, seeing as he would not be able to see anything on it anyways.

Besides it was only a small, old portable tv set, with an antenna that had become bent once when he accidentally had sat on it. Dudley had thought he perhaps could be keeping that one in his own bedroom or something. Dedalus now instead brought it downstairs to his own room to work on it.

Many strange noises and bangs emitted from that room as he tried to make it work somehow. He had told Dudley that he was going to use magic on it to see if he could trick the reciever into functioning. After two days or so he emerged from the room giving them the widest smile he could muster, he was even chuckling a little. He invited them all into the livingroom where he placed the tv on top of a spindle legged side-table. He had put a white linnen cloth on top of it all to unveile his project. He told them all to find themselves a nice seat, and to be ready for a great show. 

Dudley felt a little aprehensive about it. Earlier in his life he had seen a flying car, his aunt blowing up like a balloon, and other strange things that wizards could do. He had never seen any wizard do magic for his benefit yet. Therefore he had done his best to keep his hopes fairly low on this experiment of Dedalus´s. Dudley even thought he might have a better chance breaking it than fixing it. Since Dedalus had managed to break all of those tv sets back then. However, Dudley felt like he did not have much to loose on the matter. He could be enjoing his semi-pristine and old, tv set without beeing able to use it at all, or he could give it to Dedalus for him to brake it, or perhaps, with a slight chance, he would be able to make it work. So there they all were, sitting in the livingroom of the Bee Hive waiting for him to show them what he had done to it. 

Dedalus looked almost like a crazy inventor at that moment, with his wide smile and his hair standing up at the back of his head. He was so joyful that Dudley felt his hopes rise for that evenings tv series to come. When everybody was comfortably seated, Dedalus placed himself next to the tv set and looked at them all in anticipation. With a whisk of his arm and a "Tadaaa" he unvailed it for them. Dudley hardly recognized his old little tv set at all. It was the same frame, only much larger. He also recogized the knobs and buttons. Dedalus had made the antenna into something that looked like two rabbit ears in a way, and had placed it on top of the tv set. He was standing next to it looking even more vividly wild with his eyes wide open and smiling at them in anticipation. In addition he also was expecting applause it seemed. Hestia and Ax, who knew Dedalus the best, burst into applause and gave him some «ooohing and aahing». They did not seem to know exactly what they were cheering him on about though. 

At that point Dudley could not hold his tongue anymore, and asked him if it actually worked. Dedalus looked him gleefully into his eyes and said with a superior grin, that he never thought he´d ask. He pressed the on-button and the televisionset started. At first they could only see a lot of white snow buzzing on the screen. Then Dedalus adjusted the antenna some, and suddenly they had a picture and a sound. It was not a very good picture though. But this time Dudley and his parents were the ones to cheer and applaude him. Dedalus gave them a little bow before he sat down next to Ax, looking immensly smug with himself. 

The only channel they turned out to recieve however was the BBC news. Dudley was quite dissappointed with this actually. Thinking about all the nice tv shows he would be missing out on while he was there. He tried to shift the channels around in desperation to find something else. He even asked Dedalus if he could find them some more channels. However Dedalus did not see any point of that seeing as he had managed to find the news channel wich was the only channel they really needed. Dudley simply had to admit defeat in the end. His mother tried to comfort him as best as she could of course. That was when Dudley realized he had been giving Dedalus a lot more hope on the matter than he thought he had. Still, he recognized that one channel was at least a lot better than none at all.

This tv set did give them some opportunity to actually keep an eye out for what happened outside in the muggle world after all, Dudley thought. Besides, something as dull as watching the news together with Hestia and Dedalus even became much more exiting than Dudely had ever thought it to be before. The two of them could tell them about why things was presented thus to the muggles and what really was going on. Hestia knew one of the news readers she told them. She had been growing up next door to her, and she knew for a fact that she was a squib. She even had familymembers working for the minister of magic. Thus she was rather strictly balancing on a line of helping the muggles ot and helping the ministry concealing the wizarding world. 

Hestia and Dedalus could tell them who actually had murdered or kidnapped certain people and why most of the accidents had happened those days. They explained that muggle accidents happenning all over the country almost certainly was made by the Death Eaters and their lot. They told them theese Death Eaters really enjoyed torturing and killing people, and they did it all simply for the fun of it. The more havoc and fear they caused the better they felt. The Death Eaters also had joined up with the Dementors of Azkaban, whom were the ones who really made sure peoples spirits was as low as humanly possible.  

Dudley felt a chill going down his spine on that remark. His mother too went pale and looked at her son. She took his hand in comfort and the two of them silently thought that they were immensly grateful indeed to be under such close protection at the Bee Hive, and hopefully out of reach of those horrible people. Dudley had no wish at all to have another re-encounter with any of the Dementors ever in his life.

Vernon Dursley on the other hand, seemed to enjoy himself like you could not have expected. He gleefully told them he had always said that there was something fishy going on with the news and that the stupid news readers had never told them the whole truth. For the first time in his life he was truly right about something he had been claiming so determinedly all of his life. He actually loved to hear them talk about the havoc that was created up and down the country, and he hardly managed to hide his glee from anyone. In his own private, but quite happy thoughts about the matter, he was pleased he was not to be the one out there trying to restore the country from all of this pandemonium. That was someone elses problem. He was somehow congratulating himself that he was sitting safely in this part of the world, leaning backwards and actually enjoying the whole messy situation. Silently hoping to himself that the wizarding world would really screw things up sufficiently so that the military-force could have an excuse to expose them to the normal world and thus wipe them off the face of this earth once and for all. He had no consideration, what so ever, on the fact that it actually were the wizarding world that provided him and his family with a proper protection and also were the reason he was able to lean back and not be in a direct a part of the whole misery. This intelligence however, did not even cross Vernon Dursleys mind for one split second.

In addition to Dudleys tv set the Bee Hive had actually aquired one other quite interesting little thing to keep them posted on what went on outside of their tiny enclosure. Dedalus had brought with him a strange little radio that he kept referring to as the Wireless. This was an all magical radio of sorts, that could give them information on different magical topics. The radio did not require any electricity or batteries at all, it ran on pure magic only. Dedalus simply tapped it with his wand, gave it a password and the radio tuned in on its own accord. This radio was also used for news about what was going on in the world, both the magical- and the muggle world. Dudley had never been much interested in any kind of news earlier in his life, however as there was nothing else on, he started to look forward to listening to it every evening. Dedalus kept saying that he wanted to know as much as possible about what was going on out there so that they could know what the enemy was doing. 

The Order that he and Hestia belonged to was still intact, except nowadays they neither had a proper headquarter to meet up at, nor did they find it safe to gather too many wizards in one place theese days. However, they all had different assignements to attend to, and no matter if they perhaps now and then would like to be out in the open fighting for the good side Hestia and Dedalus was somehow happy they both were quite safe and sound in this part of the world.

In addition to all of this, they revealed that one of their midst from the Order of the Phoenix had violently betrayed them just before the school had ended that spring. He had mudrerd that tall, white-haired old wizard that had visited Privet Drive the previous year obviously. Dudley felt kind of shocked about that actually. That man had seemed to be quite a powerful wizard to him, and now he had been murdered. Hestia informed them that Harry actually had been witnessing the whole thing, however he had not been able to prevent it from happening to his own enormous despair.

Dedalus kept talking quite a lot about Professor Dumbledores murderer. For some reason or other Petunia kept tutting and snorting so much with the very mention of this persons name that she finally had to admit to Dedalus that she actually had met this man when he was just a young boy. She told him that her sister actually had been hanging around Severus Snape alot when they had been children. She also told him that she, Petunia, had always seen him as the awful person they all now claimed him to have become. She told them that he had been quite mean to her back then and that he had chased her away from her sister. He also had made a branch fall down from a tree on her once. Vernon had never heard this story, nor this mans name mentioned before in his entire life and was rather discusted with what he had done to his darling wife. He actually started to protest to them about him, however there were nothing any of them could do about any of that at present, they reminded him.

Dedalus on the other hand was very interested in Petunias story about Severus Snape and her sister Lily. He kept wanting to talk to Petunia some more about Snape and Lily. Except by then, Dedalus had taken a turn on Severus that Petunia did not like indeed. Dedalus tried to make out that Severus actually was a good person after all. He wondered out loud if Severus had happened to actually be deeply in love whith her sister. Dedalus felt he might even had solved the question if Severus truly was a Death Eater or not. He was jumping up and down with excitement. However, Petunia was not interesting in discussing this theory with him at all. Lily had married that nasty Potter boy, and that was the end of the story as far as she was concerned. Severus had always been a mean person to her eyes, and if he finally had showed his true colours to the world now, it simply was about time she said. That was the end of the discussion. Dedalus admitted defeat quite dissapointingly and left her alone with that topic. Vernon had backed his wife on the matter and made Dedalus quite end his interrogation. 

Dedalus secretly did not let this theory he had come up with go all that easily though. Even though he did not discuss it with Petunia, Hestia was a reasonable person and concidered his thoughts on the matter. She could not quite tell him that it was all rubbish, however reminded Dedalus of Snapes acchievements throughout his life. He was after all a well-known Death Eater. Besides, having murdered their dear Professor Dumbledore was not something the magical community was likely to forgive him anytime soon, no mater how much Dedalus´s theory turned out to be true. Severus Snape had made some crucial choices in his life and was now paying the consequences for them.

Hestia and Dedalus announced that they would need to keep in touch with the rest of their order, and every now and then they had to send them messages to keep them updated. Dedalus was keeping in touch with Arthur Weasly who was stationed at a good position with the Ministry of Magic, and at the same time he was able to keep an eye out for Harry Potters security. Dedalus told them that the ministry in general had turned out to be corrupted and now was on a mission to capture Harry Potter. If they truly were going to hand him over to the wrong side for them to take his life or not, nobody really knew. Therefore, the good side now had given him a full protection, and only a fair few people in the world knew where he actually was staying at. Neither Dedalus nor Hestia knew where he was at the moment, they only knew that Mad-Eye, Kingsley, Remus and Arthur had taken him to a safehouse somewhere within the order. 

Hestia kept in touch with Kingsley Shaklebolt whom was the muggle Prime Ministers body guard she explained. Vernon knew all about him though. Except he had only been made aware by Harry a couple of weeks ago, that he actually happened to be a powerful wizard. Except that he did not look like one, beeing dressed up exactly like all the other bodyguards. Not like any of those freaky wizards Vernon had met earlier in his life. Hestia could confirm that he certainly was a wizard, and that he also happened to be a good friend of hers. Kingsleys position made him able, and on the alert to help muggles out in any major crisis that might occur. 

Both Hestia and Dedalus had brought their own owles for the use of sending the order messages. However they could not use them all the time, they had to switch turn in using all the different owles living at the Bee Hive in addition to their own owles. A more advanced way of communicating was to send messages by something called a Patronus charm. This ment that a light might appear infornt of the reciever shaped like an animal of some sort, and the animal would give them a message in the senders voice. Just like the one Kingsley had sent them on the very first evening of their stay at the Bee Hive, when he told them what had happened to Harry. However they needed to use those as little as possbile since they never knew who was together with the recipient of the message.

Dudley thought that this Patronus charm almost sounded like sending a text or voice message from his iPhone. He told Dedalus all about his phone and he became rather interested in it. However, when Dedalus asked him if he could have a go at it, Dudley resolutely refused. He did not want Dedalus to tamper with his dearest iPhone. He had never owned a mobile phone that he cared about more than he cared for this one. He did tell Dedalus about it though, how it could do almost anything for him. He was not able to show him any of it though, because of the missing service on their location. However Dedalus did get the main gist on how it worked. He was rather impressed with it and said it was a good thing that the Muggles finally were to have some sort of magic in their lives too. Dudley did not quite understand what he ment by that, the phone worked on electricity and had been carefully developed through time. It took him quite a few years to actually figure out what Dedalus had meant by that remark. 

 


	15. The Tub

Vernon Dursley had noticed that their second floor bathroom was equipped with a large, and rather inviting bathtub. A luxury he and his wife did not have room for back in their house at Privet Drive. Vernon had been used to taking baths when he was a child, as his parents had lived in a rather bigger house than he and his wife could afford. Admittingly, he had frequently missed it. However, every-day-life came and went, as it tends to do, and refrained him to linger on the matter. In addition, his wife had never once complained to him about not having a bathtub, so there he was, content that it only was his own small regret.

However, here in this big house out in the wilderness, the bathroom had plenty of room for both a shower and a bathtub. Vernon had been eying the tub for quite a while when he one Saturday morning decided he was going to give it a go.

He knew his son had tried it. Allthough he vaguely remember Dudley saying he strongly did not recommend it to his father. What kind of nonsense all of that was about, he did not know. Dudley had hinted something about some odd effects to it. However, Vernon did not quite understand any of that, a bathtub with effects!? What nonsense! He thought his son might have been trying to fool his old father, in his own good-natured way.

Therefore, he told his wife he was going to take a bath and went into the bathroom to get it started. Only when he approached the taps he found more than the two he expected and was used to seeing. He pulled one of them randomly and water started to fill up the tub. He was about to turn around when he suddenly noticed that the tub had already been filled up, and hurried to turn off the tap. He thought it was rather curious, but did not linger on the matter. Instead, he removed his clothes and climbed into the tub. 

The water was rather wonderful he thought. He found a loofa hanging on a peg on the wall next to the tub and reached up to fetch it. Then his eyes dwelled on one of the other taps next to the one he had just tried. He chuckled a little to himself about his sons remark about it. He was such a funny little tyke. Perhaps he should try one of the other taps, just to make sure Dudley really had been messing with him? He thought about it for a minute or so and decided he would give it a go. It was only an old bathtub after all. This man called Ax seemed to be a harmless fellow, and as he was not magical at all, Vernon really did not mind him all that much. He was sure there were nothing fishy with this tub what so ever. 

He finally turned the tap he had set his mind on. Except nothing happened. Vernon wondered what on earth was wrong with it and tried to check if something was stuck inside the spout. He put his finger inside it and felt something rubbery move as he heard some sort of a distant knocking coming from somewhere. He thought perhaps it was his wife making the beds or opening the window of their bedroom or something, so he did not bother with it at first. 

Then he heard the banging sound coming closer and closer, and Vernon abruptly sat himself straight up and backed away from it a little. All of a sudden he could see there was something actually emitting from the spout. It looked all yellowish and red. Suddenly the thing popped out of it and landed with a little splash in the water. It turned out to be a rubber duck! Vernon could not help himself but yelled rather loudly! He was not used to seeing rubber ducks coming out of a tap like that! It did not move though, and seeing as it seemed to be only a rubber duck he did not want to draw too much attention to himself about it from the rest of the household. Therefore, he decided to hold his tongue about it for now, and simply see what happened.

After concidering it for a moment he decided the duck could stay in the water with him if it did not start messing with him in any way. Besides, he did not want to touch it, if it suddenly should become alive. 

Except, this little incident had actually made Vernon Dursley rather jumpy. He was all of a sudden a little afraid of the duck somehow. He tried to shoo it away from him as if it was alive. The duck simply sat there looking at him, softly rocking back and forth. Vernon tried to make waves in the water to make it go away. The only thing he did not consider was that he was, after all, sitting in a rather small, and deep tub. When he made a wave in the water, the duck first bobbed away from him a little as he had intended it to, only to come closer still to him, since the water was returning from the tubs wall.

This unnerved Vernon quite a bit and he started to panic a little, not noticing that one of his big toes also had entangled itself onto the chain the unstopper was linked on to. Because of this, he suddenly and quite unknowingly, had managed to pull the plug from the tub. The water was starting to empty rather quickly and Vernon did not understand what was going on. This time he really started to yell for help from his wife. He shouted out that there was simply too much damn magic around there and that he just wanted to go home!

Petunia came running to the bathroom to see whatever was the matter. There she found her husband situated inside the empty tub with a loofa covering his eyes and a rubber duck sitting at the very end of the tub. She asked him what ever he was up to? That was when Vernon Dursley looked around the bathroom and then on to his wife seeing how silly he must look to her. He had become so afraid of that rubber duck that he had lost all common sense it seemed. He noticed the thin chain wrapped around his toe, and realized he had been the one to unstopper the tub himself. He then understood that Dudleys words simply had been festering in his mind too much. In addition to his own fear of magic that had been taking hold of him. He had simply become too afraid that magic might be contained in every little thing surrounding him.

He was so shocked about it all that he blurted into an explaination about it to his wife, right down to what he felt had been Dudleys prank on him. Then Petunia put her towelled arms around his shoulders and calmly told him that he had just made all of this happen himself. There was no magic in this tub what so ever, she said. She then suggested he should stick with taking showers instead from then on. Vernon nodded his sobbing head in agreement and asked her never to tell their son about any of this.


	16. The Voices

Arabrax Bricklehurst's house was a rather great one to explore. Dudley found that he had never been in a more wonderful place. He did not reveal his feelings about this too much to his parents though. Certainly not to his father whom kept snorting and shaking his head about everything regarding the place. Dudley therefore kept his rejoice to himself. He only felt like confiding in Peter, Poppy, and ofcourse in Ax himself. 

Dudley felt he had quite alot in common with this old man. Mostly because Ax had been living his life as a squib and had always known about magic, but was not magical himself. Dudley felt like the two of them somehow had some similar experiences regarding magic. Not that Dudley truly had known all that much about magic. He only imagined to himself that he did. However, ever since he and Harry had turned eleven he had truly known that it excisted.

Nevertheless, one of the first days at the Bee Hive, Dudley was walking around the hall on the ground floor when he heard some chattering coming from one of the rooms he had not yet entered. It all sounded as if there were some sort of a meeting, with many assorted, loud voices in there. Some of them were laughing and others were arguing with eachother. 

Dudley did not know that Ax had invited more guests to arrive at the Bee Hive that particular day, so he became rather curious about it. He walked up to the door, stopped in the hallway to listen to the voices, only to hear a man talk about Dudleys family and Harry Potter. He could not make out exactly what they were saying but heard his surname mentioned a fair few times. Getting more and more curious about who was in there, he carefully turned the handle of the door and was about to open it when everything inside the room all of a sudden fell silent. Dudley opened the door and peeked inside. But then he found that the room was all empty!

How extremely curious, he tought as he entered. He looked around the room and found that it seemed to be an oldfashioned sittingroom with some handsomely elaborated furnitures. Just like the ones in the parlour his family was disposing upstairs. There were several paintings of different important looking people hanging on every inch of the walls. There were a huge grate on the opposite wall from the door in the same size as the one in the living room they all used every evening. There were oldfashioned, huge, many-coloured carpets covering the floor and an enormous chandelier was hanging from the roof. No light was lit in there, and it did not seem as if anybody had been inside that room for quite some time. Dudley felt himself freeze on the spot. He suddenly thought that the room must be filled with invisible ghosts or something. He panicked and ran outside in the hallway again as quick ad he could, where he bumped right into Ax himself. 

Dudley was panting hard as he stumbled into telling Ax what he had heard and what he had just done. He begged him immediately to let him know if the house was haunted or something. Ax chuckled at this and shook his head in his calm and relaxed manner. He asked Dudley to please come with him back into the room so that he could show him what it really was. Dudley hesitated a bit before agreeing. He thought that as long as Ax was with him it was going to be ok. 

The old man reopened the door and entered the room with Dudley following in his tracks. He then told Dudley to take a good look at the paintings on the walls. Then he asked him if he could detect anything strange with theese pictures at all. Dudley looked at them a little closer this time than he had done at first. Except he could really not see anything out of the ordinary at all. Ax told him that they had been moved into this one particular room of the house the day before Dudley and his family had arrived at the Bee Hive. The reason for that was because theese were magical paintings. They could all move and talk to eachother. Ax told him they even tended to visit eachothers frames at will. In addition, they could visit other paintings of themselves in other locations around the magical world. 

Ax smiled and asked Dudley if he was ready to see this kind of magic come to life? Dudley took a deap breath, braced himself and said yes, he was ready. Ax then adressed a man in one of the paintings and asked him to please show Dudley what he meant. The man in the picture removed his hat and gave them a little bow. Then he introduced himself to Dudley, and said that he was pleased to make his aquaintance. Dudley was gaping, and without realizing it, he was descreetly hiding himself behind Ax. Despite himself Dudley was rather shocked, he really should be used to things like this by now he thought, but there seemed to be so many more things to unhinge him around there. Then, another man in a different painting said his name and bowed to him. One after another they announced their names and gave him deeper and deeper bows. Soon all the inhabitants of the pictures had introduced themselves. One more extravagant than the last, as if they had a silent competition on who could greet him in the finest manner, and the most pompously. Dudely had to smile to himself at the end of it. Feeling almost royalty again. 

Ax then asked him if he thought it strange that he had to move them all into one room of the house? Dudley had to admit he quite understood that. If his parents were the ones to discover the paintings, Ax would have a greater job explaining and calming them down. Dudley imagined his mother falling into hysterics or perhaps fainting, and his father would have been yelling his head off, threatening Ax with all kind of nonsense.

As the two men left the room Ax told him that the paintings also usually were some sort of a company to him, they could tell him about matters that had occured at the exact time and place when it had happened, if one of the models on the portraits also had a picture placed in or around the location. That was the reason why he did not really need a television set, nor a radio. He got his rapports straight from the eye-witness on the scene. This was also one of the reasons Dedalus had wanted them all to be staioned at the Bee Hive. He knew all about Ax´s portraits and in which strategic places their other paintings were stationed around the magical community. However Ax thought it was a fun distraction from what he was used to in general having a tv set and a wireless he told Dudley. 

Ax also asked him to please not tell his parents about this particular room, because he really did not want to move the paintings one more time if they had a fit about it and demanded this kind of magic to be removed. Since they really did not need to utilize this particular room, it would simply be for the best. Perhaps later if his parents should come to like magic they might know about them he said. Dudley promised he would not say anything, and rejoiced a little in feeling somewhat special and tougher than his parents to Ax´s eyes. Ax told him that he was going to keep the room locked and ask Dedalus if he could sound proof it in any way so that his parents did not accidentally stumble upon it as Dudley had done. 

Ax also said that Dudley was welcome to join them every now and then if he wanted to. He said that this room was going to be functioning as some sort of a meetingroom for himself, Hestia and Dedalus if they needed to discuss magical matters. Dudley however, thought it sounded a little too much like work and politics, so he declined it.


	17. Layers of Dust

Vernon Dursley was actually not the only one causing some sort of a turmoil during their first week of their stay at the Bee Hive. Yes, he could easily stir up an argument with Hestia if he felt provoked. However, only a couple of hours after their arrival Petunia had started to complain discreetly to her husband about the ruggedness of their situation. She tried her best to hold her tongue about it to their host, however she had great difficulties in doing so. The only thing that made her keep her mouth shut about it to him was her fear of beeing thrown back into, what she had started to consider as the normal but dangerous world again. 

Wherever she looked around the livingroom they used, she could not help herself but to purse her lips in indignation. She could see layers of dust sitting on shelves, tables and on the floor. The windows needed a good cleaning as well as the curtains. This was ofcourse by Petunias excellent standards. Neither Dudley nor Vernon did notice any of this before she pointed it all out, so it was not as if it was really dirty there. Petunia happened to suffer from germ- and dust- phobia, and had enormous problems even sitting down in the living room. She could not see the cozyness at all like her dear Duddykins obviously could. Everywhere else in the house however, seemed to be allright somehow. Even though she would very much like to know that the house actually was getting cleaned every day, as was her own standards back at Privet Drive.

Rooms like the diningroom, however, seemed to be spotless. All the cutlery and the rest of the room was as pristine as if she had cleaned out it herself, she could tell. Ofcourse, she had not been inside the kitchens yet, but so far, that part of the house actually seemed to be all clean and acceptable to her. If there was one thing Petunia disliked it was a dirty kithchen and eating area. Allthough all of the utility they had been using up until then seemed to be clean, polished and quite to her own liking. Therefore she was rather befuddled about why the livingroom in particular was in such a condition.

Petunia had always been proud of her own clean and her neat  "Dursley-standards", as she called it to herself. She had always liked cleaning and making sure everything was in order before she turned in every night back at Privet Drive. She used to love feeling her own sore hands and the fresh smell of the «Fairy Power Spray» she loved to use back home. Here she had little opportunity for any of that, and desperately wished she had brought all of her cleaning gear along with her. 

One evening into the first week after they had all gone to bed Dudley actually found her in the upstairs bathroom scrubbing down the entire room. He guessed that she had gone too long without a washcloth in her hands, and had now cracked. She told him that she would at least make sure the rooms her family accommodated were clean and fresh. If the livingroom downstairs was not going to be something she could do anything about!

The next morning, however, she deeply felt she had had enough of all the filth surrounding her. She was perfectly aware that she was a guest in that house. Nevertheless, she simply could not live like that any longer. Therefore she carefully sat Ax down in the livingroom to have a little tete-a-tete with him about the matter. Ax quickly told her to keep her voice down. The last thing he wanted to do was to insult his house elves in any way. His life depended on them even after the Dursley family had left, he said. 

Petunia was rather calmer on the outside than she felt on the inside when she had this conversation with him. She tried her best to reason with him and begged him to let her give him a hand. Ax however, was quite determined on this matter. He explained to her that young the young house elf called Poppy was the one in charge of cleaning the livingroom. But he admitted to her that she perhaps did not yet have a grown up womans skills on the matter. Nevertheless, he refused to step on her toes by telling her so. 

He told Petunia that Poppy was supposed to do the cleaning by magic, but she had refused to learn how to do it from her mother once, and the two of them had had quite a huge row about it a few years ago. One of her younger brothers, Puffy, had taunted her rather badly about it as well, at a time she was the most vulnerable, and Ax knew that this was a very touchy topic for his dear Poppy. That was the reason why he would rather not bring it up. 

Even though Ax was very well aware of the fact that Poppy only pretended to clean the house manually. He said that she had claimed that she had been taught how to do it. Except Ax knew very well that she did not quite know how. Therefore she ended up simply walking around the room with a duster in her hand not actually touching any of the surfaces at all. 

Poppys secret feelings about the matter was that too much time had passed by as more and more dirt, and work had accumulated on her. She simply had become rather overwhelmed and exapserated with it all. She felt at that point that there were no end of the amount of chores she would have to go through. Therefore she denied it all to herself and everybody else, and pretended it was not there at all.

Ax calmly but firmly told Petunia that she was not allowed to help Poppy clean the house, nor to even mentioning it to her in any way because he did not want to hurt the young elfs feelings. So what if the place was a little scruffy, he hardly noticed it himself anymore. He told Petunia that she simply would have to close her eyes to the way everything was around the house. Besides, it was not too bad at the time he said, because Poppys father had secretly cleaned it by magic the night before the Dursleys had  arrived. Not that he really had any cleaning skills himself, however the room was in far better shape at present than it had been before he had cleaned it.

Petunia really wanted to throw a tantrum at him because of his refusal. Ax did not know for how long she actually had kept her mouth shut on the matter! Even though it really only had been a couple of days. However, she actually did manage to keep her resentment and discust to herself at the moment. She figured she was much too dignified and sophisticated for throwing tantrums at men from the wilderness.

Ax, not knowing anything about how deep she truly felt on the matter, asked her politely if there was anytning else around the place she could be interested in occupying herslef with instead? Thinking she probably was going to be a little bored around there since she obviously was used to do all her familys cleaning. He told her that she was more than welcome to join him in the garden pruning the flowerbeds or trimming any of the hedges if she liked. 

Alas, only a couple of days after she had talked to Ax about the matter, she could simply bear it no longer. Petunina had happened upon Poppy one morning dancing around the empty living room pretending to dust the place and singing merrily to herself. Poor Petunia probably did not convay her intentions to the young elf in the most polite manner, seeing as she had opressed her feelings on the matter for such a long time. Therefore she ended up insulting her something dreadfully, and Poppy ran out of the livingroom sobbing loudly and all in tears. 

Poppy had no idea what suddenly had hit her over the head. All of the scarred feelings she had been inflicted with over the years on the subject was now reopened again. Why on earth did this Muggle woman tell her things like this, Poppy could not comprehend. Her brother Puffy had done the same and she had never liked him at all. Poppy had decided she was going to like all of the Dursleys even though she had been introduced to the mother and father rather harshly on their first morning.

Petunia had been used to addressing boys only in her household for years and had forgot all about the fact that a girl usually needed to recieve a message like that somewhat sugar-coated. The whole business ended in uproar, and it took the better part of a whole day for Ax to calm the situation down. In his easy way he mediated between the two of them. He explained to Poppy that Petunia did not have a house elf herself, seeing as she was a muggle, that she was used to doing  all the housework herself, and that she simply had wanted to help her out with the cleaning. 

Then he told Petunia that she had to understand that Poppy was a young elf in training and she was going to be learning the ropes the hard way as every elf had done before her. She was supposed to see the mess for herself or be punished for it. That was how the house elves usually were taught dicipline. The only «fault» in that plan was that Ax did not believe in punishment. Since he and his aunt had forbidden them to punish eachother or themselves, nothing had been done to enlighten Poppy on the matter. Ax actually ended up taking all the blame for everything regarding Poppys ignorance about cleaning himself. He said that he probably had not been a good advisor to Poppy and he was the one who should have told her to do it more properely. 

Petunia then told Poppy in a somewhat milder tone that she really would like to show her how to clean the house properely if she would only let her. Then at least she would learn the manual way of doing it. Poppy was still very affronted about it during the whole day, and Petunia was told by Ax to give it a rest for a day or two. 

A few days later however, Ax quite gently brought up the subject to Poppy again, and this time she agreed to it. She had been rather badly scolded verbally by her parents about it. The two of them had told her that she had to learn somehow and that she was really too lazy for her kind. They truly were ashamed of her. Her mother had been going on and on about how they all had to be really careful amongst wizards and now muggles too it seemed. She had said that Poppy probably would have to find herself work someplace one day and if the rumour had it that she was lazy or unable to work properly she most certainly would not be able to find any work at all! Poppy and Cookie finally agreed to let her mother teach Poppy how to do it magically after she had learned how to do it manually from Petunia. Her parents told her she should be seeing this as some sort of an education. Poppy finally realized how dangerous it could be if she did not know her crafts properly. 

The next couple of days everyone could see an enoromous transformation in the livingroom. After every hurt and scold had been forgiven and forgotten Petunia and Poppy seemed to work alongside very well indeed. As long as Petunia took care to tell Poppy in a polite manner what it was that she did wrong. Poppy had been instructed by her parents to be open-minded and willign to learn from Petuina. 

Before they knew it the two of them had finished with the livingroom and had started to clean every other room in the house manually as well. Every window was getting cleaned. They dusted and scrubbed all the floors for days. Every carpet was taken out for a good beating. All the curtains throughout the entire house was taken down and washed properly. The house started to smell wonderful and everything became shiny and neat.

Petunia had almost become a little frantic about it. Every night she slumped to bed, exausted but content. The Bee Hive house soon became a delight to be living in for everybody, including Petunia. Petunia herself was quite satisified that she finally had managed to see eye to eye with this Poppy-elf and after the two of them had cleaned out the house properly she taught her how she could do a little of the housework on an every day basis. Then it did not have to become such a prohibitively task. Petunia even helped her put up a list of the different chores she could do every day. Then she could just tick off the things she had done during the week. In that way she would have control of all the chores during the week  and she would not have to feel like she was constantly drowning in work. This way she also knew what she had already done, and what was the next thing to do on the list. 

Petunia was quite satisfied with herself regarding the resault of the whole matter. She had never been able to tell or show anybody how to work a household before in her entire life. Now she felt quite extatic about it all. She and Poppy had managed to establish a well enough relationship between themselves to agree that Petunia could help Poppy out whenever it was necessary. For example, the bathroom upstairs that was only used by the Dursleys. Petunia had told her that she really would like to be the one scrubbing it out herself. Secretly, with her germ-fobia she really did not trust anybody but herself to do that sort of job properly. She was also allowed to clean and make up the Dursleys bedrooms and the parlour they used. This way Poppy only had two more bedrooms and an extra bathroom downstairs to clean than she usually did with the rooms Hestia and Dedalus were using.

One evening the week after the whole row between Petunia and Poppy had occurred Ax and Dudley was sitting alone in the livingroom talking, when Ax admitted to Dudley that perhaps all of this house-cleaning business was somehow making Petunia feel good. This way she did not have to think of all the danger that existed outside, in the real world.

You see Petunia actually knew something that her husband did not. She was very much aware that they were not in hiding simply for the fun of it, as her husband so obviously claimed. She knew that all of this was for real, and that Voldemort was very much for real. She knew all of this, because she had heard her sister talk about that dreadful man years and years ago. Petunia also knew that he truly had been the one whom had killed her only sister, and because of this she really had a genuine fear of Voldemort and what he was doing to the world.


	18. A Party on a             Wedding day

Every evening at the Bee Hive they all sat down in the living room. They watched the only channel they had on Dudleys little tv set that Dedalus had fixed for them. The news told them about the weather beeing all funny with that strange and unnatural fog everywhere. After some time Vernon Dursley finally started to understand the severity of their situation, and he understood the importance of going undercover. All though he could not believe how Harry was not simply handed in to this Lord Thingy! Everything bad would stop then, would it not? If he had known that Harry really was the key to stop the madness, he would have handed him in himself. If he only knew to whom. He did not dare speak theese thoughts out loud though, in case they chucked him and his family back out into the dangerous world again. He knew by now that he really would have a hard time keeping his family safe out there on his own against all theese annoying wizards. 

The day that the Dursleys had arrived at the Bee Hive, they all had been told that Harry barely had escaped Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Harry obviusly was staying at a safe house somewhere, probably with some of his friends. Hestia and Dedalus kept talking about them alot and the Dursleys had actually met some of them before, so they knew exactly who they were by looks. However, no one of the Dursleys had ever been interested in Harrys activities and life before at all, and it felt a little strange for them if they were to start now. 

Nevertheless, as Hestia, Diggle and Ax happened to be so very interested and awestruck with Harry Potter, they kept talking about him constantly and the three Dursleys felt they were now giving Harry more attention than they had ever done in their entire life. They were even told that he had been going steady with a girl. The youngest of the Weaslys, apparently. Dudley wondered how theese strangers could know his cousin all this much better than he did. How on earth could they know all of theese things when his closest family did not. Dudley knew that Harry never did confide in his family, but he had no idea his life was this interesting at all. 

Apparantly that tall old whitehaired wizard called professor Dumbledore had been the one, years ago, whom had been starting this order that Hestia and Dedalus was a part of. It was called the Order of the Phoenix. Dudley knew that this order now both existed to protect Harry and the rest of the wizarding population, in addition to fight and resist that Lord Who-person. Dudley was glad that order existed. If it had not, there would be no one to protect him and his family from harm. He had been thinking about this over and over for a couple of days. He had even had his worst nightmare relived during one particular night. He had woken up in his comfortable bed at the Bee Hive terrified from the dream, but looking around the room he remembered where he was and started to feel utterly grateful towards them all for protecting them. Harry had his gratitude too. Dudley knew by now that Harry was a good person, and that he did not want them to come to any harm, even though Dudley and his family had treated him badly throughout Harrys entire life. Dudley felt kind of sad that he had not been able to say anything more to Harry before he left Privet Drive, that he actually was thankful for him. However he had felt too flustered with all those people hanging around the livingroom. If he only had had the nerve to knock on his door and hand him that cup of tea back then though. Oh well, there was nothing he could do about it now. 

Through the order they also heard about the forthcoming marriage of one of the young Weaslys. Apparently there were even more than the ones the Dursleys had met and already heard about. Dedalus Diggle was incredible exited about it, because he had been invited to attend the wedding. 

Hestia was feeling a little bit jealous about it at first, she would have loved to see the beautiful bride she had heard so much about. She was French apparently, and the rumour said that she had a rare beauty few people had ever seen. Hestia would really like to go herself. However, she rallied soon enough. One of them needed to stay at the Bee Hive to protect the Dursleys. Dedalus knew Arthur Weasly alot better then she did after all, so it would be much more natural for him to go than her, if they both had been invited, which in any case they had not. 

Dudley actually felt a little jealus about it too that Dedalus was going off somewhere to a magical wedding. His jealousy was mostly based on all the great food he probably would be served. There would most likely be stacks of cakes and sweets and all of the good things he liked the best in the entire world. Not that he complained about the food he was served at the Bee Hive. That house elf called Cookie certainly knew what she was doing in the kitchen. However, Dudley only dreamed about all the things he probably would be missing out on. He even mentioned it to his mother, who felt helpless in comforting her darling son on the matter. She had after all not access to the kitchen there, seeing as she was a guest in that house.

Dedalus and Hestia kept debating if Harry Potter would be attending the wedding or if he actually would be somewhere else. Dedalus suspected that he would not be there. He said that there would be too many people attending the wedding to expose him and it certainly would not be safe. The more he thought about it he actually thought it would be utter madness if Harry actually were going to attend.  

The end of july approached. The wedding day arrived and Dedalus went away to join the Weaslys wedding. The Dursleys, Ax and Hestia decided that they would treat themselves a little that day as none of them had been invited to any party. Therefore, Dudley, Poppy and Bumble picked a lot of strawberries and raspberries from the garden at the foot of the house. While Cookie whipped up a nice dinner for them. The desserts was made of the berries they had picked, together with a lovely vanilla custard. Hestia and Ax decided they were all going to eat outside in the garden. This was Petunias first time ever for eating out of doors and she was a little sceptical on the matter. However, after having seen what Hestia and Poppy had done with the garden she approved heartily. Hestia had found (aka conjured up) a huge aquamarine-coloured table and several chairs in mixed colours like golden yellow, fuchia, lime, coral and cyan. She placed a white table cloth on top of the table, and Poppy had organised several flowers into a decoration on the middle of it. In addition, Poppy had placed several candles all over the place. Candles was sitting in jars both on the table and hanging from lanterns  in the tres all over the garden. There was also candles floating in mid air, without anything holding it up. However, when Petunia noticed this she asked Poppy if she could please take those down, because she was worried how her husband would react to it. She did not want him to become all angry and upset over such a nonsensical detail.

Soon enough the table was all set, and Hestia and Cookie entered the the garden carrying several trays. No wait, Hestia wasn't carrying anything but her wand. The dishes was magically floating in front of her in formation and landed quite neatly on top of the table. Dudley exclaimed a loud "Woow!" and Petunia silently agreed. It was quite a few years ago since she had seen this kind of magic. Vernon luckily, was not there at the time, he was together with Ax down in his wine cellar to pick out some nice wine for the occation. They emerged only a few moments after, carrying a couple of bottles each in their hands, the both of them looking as happy as ever. Then they all sat themselves down and enjoyed a lovely dinner and desserts together. 

By then they had all become acustomed to the house elves taking their main meals together with them. As long as they did not perform any visible magic in front of the Dursleys everything was going to be all right. Dudley however, had started to notice that the food seemed to magically appear in front of him as he needed it there. The gravy jar had been sitting at the other end of the table when he had wanted it, and he was about to ask Poppy to pass it on to him, when it suddenly was sitting right in front of him. She smiled at him as she raised an eyebrow, and he knew that she had performed magic. As he did not mind her doing her kind of magic, it was all fine and he smiled back at her, shaking his head a little. He thought that she probably had done that before too without him beeing any the wiser. During the meal he noticed that similar things actually happened to his parents. He smiled to himself, obviously beeing the only one of the Dursleys beeing aware of this. He also thought to himself that he liked this kind of magic a lot.

The birds was singing, the sun was shining and it was an alltogether lovely summer day. Vernon and Ax both enjoyed the wine they had found earlier, and became quite good friends over it. They kept cheering and saluting everything they could think of. The only topic they did not touch though, was Harry Potter. Ax knew very well by then that Harry was a subject Vernon would not budge on. He stubbornly disliked him from the very bottom of his heart, and there was nothing anybody could do about it. After they had eaten several helpings and the sun was starting to set, the two men dissapeared inside the house. Hestia, Petunia and the house elf parents cleared the party all up, while Dudley, Peter, Poppy and Bumble went inside the gazeebo to enjoy some honey fudge Peter had fetched for them. Dudley had never tasted anything like this in his entire life. It felt as if he was levitating from his chair. He did not know it, but he actually was levitating a little. Peter simply did not tell him about it. Not until much later in his stay there.

They did not expect Dedalus Diggle to come back from the wedding before the next day. However, he did not return the next day. Hestia started to worry a little about him in the evening and she and Ax went inside the parlour to the talking paintings. When they emerged they both looked a little pale and told them that something actually had happened at the ministry the previous evening. They did not know for sure, however, there might be a slight chance that the wedding had been intercepted somehow. They did not know for sure and none of the paintings was placed in the Weaslys home to give them any intelligence on the matter. However, she didn't dare send a patronous message to Dedalus in case something really had gone wrong and he had been captured by Death Eaters or something. Allthough, when he did not even show up the day after, Hestia were convinced that something had gone wrong. She wasn't sure she could do anything about it either. She was afraid of contacting anybody else about it in case the ones she contacted were watched or had been captured in any way. None of the paintings had any further information on theese things either. Therefore she decided that the safest thing for them at the moment was  to just wait it out and see. After four days Dedalus finally turned up. He was all right but something grave truly had happened at the wedding. 

Dedalus told them all that the Death Eaters had finally broken through the protection that had been keeping the safety-charm of the Burrow, the Weaslys house. Death Eaters had tortured and killed the Minister for Magic. This was a huge blow for the Order he told them. The Minister was one of the few people left in the Ministry whom could keep Harry Potter safe, and who could be tough enough to face You know Who himself. The Death Eaters had attacked the Burrow as the wedding party had still been going on. They had obviously been thinking that they would find Harry Potter there. Many of the guests had been taken in for questioning about his whereabouts. However, and luckily most of them had actually managed to get away from there, including himself. He said he had not seen hind nor tail of Harry Potter while he was there so he did not know what the Death Eaters had been thinking. He had been right all the time, it would have been utter madness and too dangerous to keep Harry there so he was most definately staying somewhere else, he said.  

Dedalus had kept away from the Bee Hive for this many days simply because he thought he had been followed. He had managed to shake them off at last, so that he finally could return safely to them. He also told them that You Know Who´s name had been jinxed. So under no circumtance were they ever to say his name again, or they would be discovered at once by the Death Eaters. Diggle had discovered all of this as he had been on the run. He had stayed with Mundungus Fletcher and a couple of his dodgy friends one night and one of them had said his name out loud when suddenly two Death Eaters had come bearing down upon them. They had managed to fight their way out of there since they happened to outnumber them. However, this tightened the knots for people in general even more he said. 

The Wireless was also being watched so nobody dared to send any programmes at all at the moment. He said it was a good thing that Hestia had not contacted him nor anybody else. Because in fact, any person she might have contacted probably would have been watched. They were perfectly safe at the Bee Hive though, having all the charms there  protecting them and the entire farm. Besides only a few people even knew that this place existed. However, Diggle pressed the importance of never to step outside of the garden fence or outside of the farm boundaries, because their protection only stretced that far. He and Hestia then took a round about the place to check if everything was ok. When they returned to the house they had decided that the two of them and Ax would take it in turns to keep watch the next couple of days and nights. They said they would probably keep watch for a while, as a precaution. 

Dudley really wanted to help as well and when he happened to get the chance he told Hestia that he could help them keep watch too. Hestia smiled at him and shook her head at this. She told him that he was not to worry about any of this because he was one of the people they were supposed to protect. If he thought they were going to sleep tight in their beds while he was keeping watch over them and perhaps fending for himself, he was deluded. Besides he did not know what he was going to look for. Some wizards had the ability to become invisible and act real fast. Perhaps even Ax would not know exactly what to do if anything happened either, however he knew what to look for at least, and if anything showed up he could raise the alarm quickly enough. No, she told him, he was going to leave all of this to her, Dedalus and Ax. 

Dudley felt rather relieved at her words, because he was really afraid that she would have accepted him. Nevertheless, he had sincerely wanted to volunteer for the task. Now he found he liked Hestia even better. Not only because he was off the hook, but because of the words she had chosen. He had felt like he and his family was a little bothersome to them, but now he realized that was not the case.

After a couple of weeks, the Weasly twins actually took it in their strides to pick up the broadcast on the wireless again. The programme the Weasly twins broadcasted was called «Potterwatch». They clearly wanted anybody to know that they were supporting Harry Potter in any way they were able to. Dedalus announced with pride that the two of them were the only ones truly bold enough to do this. They told their listeners that they had to change the location, time and password everytime they had sent a programme. They also used alias names, and so did all of their visitors. This way the Wireless was on standby all day, so that Dedalus would cath the next password and keep up with what happened outside in the world.

About two weeks after the wedding had taken place, Dedalus heard from Arthur Weasly that Harry actually had been attending the wedding.He had been so heavily disguised that nobody would ever have recognized him if they approached him. Harry and two of his friends had actually barely managed to escape the death eaters from the wedding.

Nobody knew where they had gone to now. And eveyone started emmediately to speculate about it. When actually Vernon butted in and promptly suggested that he must have gone to that bloody house of his in London! However Diggle contradicted him at once and announced that it would be utter madness. He said that the Death Eaters would keep that particular house under survaillance for sure. Since that house had been the Headquarter for the Order of the Phoenix for the last couple of years. Besides, Severus Snape would be one of the secretkeepers of the house now, since Dumbledore had died. That meant that Snape and his Death Eater friends would be able to enter it any time they wanted to. That made Harrys house on Grimmaulds Place completely out of the question for him and his friends to even approach, Dedalus said.

Allthough, as it turned out, at the end of Augugst they actually heard from one of the other order members that Harry and his friends actually had been staying at his house in London that month. It happened to be Remus Lupin whom had seen them there and talked to them. He had figured out that he needed to check that house if Harry happened to be there or not. Dedalus was rather crestfallen with Harrys nerve and reclessness. He laughed out loud as he thought of all the times Harry had mangaded to outwit the Death Eaters during a short amount of time. Hoping he was not running out of luck any time soon. They heard that Remus also had offered them his help, but Harry had refused him. He had no idea what they were all up to, only that Dumbledore had set them a task and that they had to do themselves. Remus did not know for how long they would stay there or what was going to happen next.

On the Wireliess radio the Weasly twins kept on encouraging everybody to keep themselves safe and hope that Harry and his friends were going to be ok. Hestia kept on telling them all that she knew that Harry Potter was made of real strong stuff. Diggle laughed, shook his head and repeated his thoughts on the fact that it really was a bold move of them to be staying at Grimmauld Place. Hestia kept on telling the Dursleys how proud they all must be of him. 

However, not all of the Dursleys liked her point of view. Vernon was apt to argue with her anytime about that particular subject. He felt that Harry had been a burden on him and his family his entire life. Hestia would then argue back at him that if Harry had been her nephew she would have been utterly attending and caring towards him, and ever so proud of him. The two of them simply couldn´t see eye to eye on the matter. Dudley and Petunia did not feel like partaking in that particular discussion. They knew what had happened in the past, and did not particularly want to bring it up around there. So many things had happened to them during the last couple of weeks, Dudley thought. Beeing ungrateful towards Harry was not going to be one of them. Dedalus, oblivious to Vernons feelings regarding Harry congratulated  all of the Dursleys for having such a fine relative over and over again. Dudley secretly started to feel a little proud of Harrys accievements at that point.


	19. Steven Figg

After having stayed at the Bee Hive for a little more than a month, Vernon started complaining that he would have to go back to his work somehow. After all he was the London Director of this firm called Grunnings. In addition, he had mortgages for his house to take care of along with other expences in his life. He also told them that he needed to keep himself occupied with something while he was going to stay there. He was not used to do nothing at all for a such long period of time. He was afraid he would be loosing his mind completely beeing all cooped up there as he were. Ofcorse, in his own private mind he had enjoyed not going to work everyday, however his concious was now catching up with him regarding  work and his income. Therefore, something had to be done! 

He told Ax, Hestia and Dedalus that they needed to come up with a way to solve his for him in some way or the other. Hestia explained to him that he did not have any choice in the matter but to stay put there with them. If he left the place he would not be protected by the magical community any longer, and he could easily become a target for the dark side to play with as they choose. Ofcorse, he did not want to leave the safe and sound environment at the Bee Hive so he did not stress the matter of leaving the place at all. That was not his intention by bringing this up in the first place. He really just needed them to help him figure a way so that he simply did not loose his job. As he had no idea on how to solve the matter himself he were in dire need of their help to solve this issue for him. Besides he really did need to find something or other to occupy himself with on a day to day basis.

Hestia, Dedalus and Ax realized that they really would need to deal with Vernons working situation. None of them knew for how long their stay was going to last and they could not stretch his summer-vacation any longer, nor could he call in sick for a long time without a doctors permit either. In addition, it was not as if he could simply tell the people at his office why he was not coming in anymore. Hestia, Dedalus and Ax talked about it during the whole course of an evening. Finally they settled on getting Vernon an inturn to be at his office as a replacement for him. That person would act as his eyes and ears, but Vernon would be making the desicions on what was going to be done. Vernon liked this idea though, naturally, he downright refused to split his salary with anyone in the world, so they would have to figure out a way to make that Ministry of Magic of theirs pay for the inturnship somehow. Hestia found this suggestion rather distasteful, but Dedalus told him that he would try and arrange it for him with the Ministry.

They spent some time figuring out who would be the perfect person for this assignement. Hestia stated that it would have to be a magical person, so that they would know how to communicate with them and who would be able to recieve Vernons messages. This was a suggestion that Vernon downright protested towards though. He said he was not having some freakshow into his office rummanging around blowing up people left and right and what not. Hestia argued back at him to watch his mouth about people beeing freaks. How dared he talk down on someone like that. In addition, how dared he abusing a whole community at once simply because he was such a big dried up prune of a muggle! She also, once again, reminded him of whom was making sure he and his family were safe. The whole discussion seemed to be about to escalate out of porportions when Dudley actually interveined and took Hestias side on the matter. He told his father to chill a little on this magical business of his. Vernon was not used to be opposed by his dearest son regarding magical matters, and was rather stunned by it. Dudleys words had made him shut up. Even though the only reason for that was his shock towards Dudley. Hestia on the other hand liked Dudleys intervening. Nevertheless his words had made her remember herself in the situation too, and that had calmed her down.

Ax on the other hand, had stayed quiet during their entire discussion. When he thought them all sufficiantly at ease, he stated quite calmly that he actually did agree with Vernon on the matter of not using a magical person. Not because he thought they would make a havoc of the place, but because of their differences in perseption of the world. Instead he suggested they used someone who would be a Squib. A Squib would know how both worlds operated and would most likely be able to know his or her way around a computer and a telephone quite easily. 

After Vernon quite unsuccessfully tried to hide his snorting at the fact that a magical person did not know his way around a common telephone, he agreed with Ax on taking in such a person as he had just described. Ax actually earned a few silent points from Vernon because of it. Ax stated that this person had to be someone who was young enough to have solid and updated computer skills. Because Vernon would not be able to come into the office to teach them, and he would have to explain how things worked at the office through letters. Vernon had a number of obstacles he could think of when it came to showing him the ropes around Grunnings whithout actually beeing there. He would have to rely on somebody from the office to help this inturn person out, and even that could turn out to be difficult since they were all a bunch of imbiciles in Vernons eyes. Nevertheless, he liked this plan of theirs. The thought of him staying in this secluded part of the world and still be the one running Grunnings London office had a great appeal to him. Therefore he mentioned none of his imagined obstacles to the others, he would manage it just fine he thought.

Finally they ended up deciding on a young man called Steven Figg. He was a relative of old mrs Figg, an old neighbour of the Dursleys back at Privet Drive. Dedalus said that he knew him a little, because Dedalus was a good friend of mrs Figg, and he had met with Steven once or twice when Steven still was a child and had visited his aunt. He was a Squib and had been living with muggles during most of his life. He knew perfectly well how both a telephone and a computer worked, in addition to this, he was perfectly able to communicate with people in the magical world. Steven would be running the office through Vernon. Executing all the tasks that Vernon set him, and he would also be responsible for his staff while Vernon was away. In addition he would participate in all the different and important meetings for Grunnings on Vernons behalf. 

All of them were satisfied with the whole idea they had just come up with and decided that there were no time to loose on implementing the idea into life. Dedalus immediately wrote a letter to Arabella Figg, and asked her to help him recruit Steven for the task. She sent a return letter the very next day, letting them know that she was happy to help them out. She also told them that Steven would be honored to undertake this assignement and pleased to actually be of some assistance to Harry Potters family in this troubled  and dangerous time.

Vernon himself wrote a long letter to his boss at the main office explaining that he had to be working away from the office because of his poor health. He hated to lie to his boss like that, but since he was in dire need he figured he might as well smear it on thickly. He told them he had gained somewhat of a heart condition, and that he had to stay away from the stress at the office for a while. He did not want any flowers or anything sent to his home, there were no need for that. He was going to be perfectly okay, but he needed his rest. He was staying at some resort far away and was not to be troubled. He told them that he was getting them an inturn to take over his tasks at the office. He told them that he himself would be in contact with this young man on a daily basis, so the main office did not need to trouble themselves with the matter since he would manage everything perfectly fine himself. Vernon was rather satisfied with the letter he had produced to the main office, and figured that he had covered every aspect they would need to know regarding the whole matter. He had not concidered that his bosses might have some follow-up questions about the matter, but did not have any means to contact him. They therefore might become more curious about what was going on than if they had not recieved a letter like this at all. Naturally, they would have to investigate such a matter as this. Nevertheless, whatever Vernon Dursley perhaps could not imagine would not hurt him. Not at present anyway.

However, when the people at Vernons office heard the news about their boss, the entire staff at Grunnings made up their own theory on the matter. Nobody at the office questioned his poor health, seeing as he had a quite large constitution, and he always had the most horrific temper. That combination could never be good for his poor heart. His employees took this news with great pleasure and actually celabrated quietly with a cake. This happened before Steven Figg started his inturnship, ofcourse. 

Vernons inturn was in his early twenties. He was long and lanky with enourmusly large feet that he seemed to be tripping over all the time. He appeared to have longer arms than was considered normal. He alltogehter looked as if someone had stretched him out as if he was a chewing gum and let go, and then he had just ended up staying like that. He had blue eyes that looked a little enlargened behind his fat spectacles. His face was somewhat scarred from the result of several pimples from his teens. His hair was brown, bushy and dull, and the general impression was that it seemed to be in need of a good old hair cut. His clothes was rather a mish mash, consisting of a knitted many-coloured vest an old lady could have produced, and a dark mauve shirt dated from around the seventies, dark blue denim-jeans from about the current mode, and patent leather dancing-shoes from the 50th century. Despite his rather odd look, all of his clothes and Steven himself actually appeared to be quite clean, and his shoes was always neatly polished.  Apart from his appearance, he gave the impression of having generally high spirits and seemed to have a good and levelled head on his sholders. 

The people at Grunnings office was rather amazed that Mr Dursley would even have considered to hire a man with such an appearance. Mr Dursley had always been the first person to ridicule anyone that looked or behaved a little differently than what he himself appraised to be normal. This man looked like he was everything Vernon Dursley would not have approved upon. They were all quite sure that he could not have met with him before hiring him. Some of them also had a theory that mr Dursley must have gone blind or perhaps had been knocked over the head or something. Or even, perhaps he had been kidnapped somewhere and the letter the main office had recieved was from their kidnappers imposing to be mr Dursley. The theories they had were many. Nevetheless, everybody at the office kept their mouths shut about their thoughts on the whole matter. They certainly did not want Mr Dursley to know that they all were really happy that he was not going to be there himself. Vernon was considered to be a very strickt superior, and usually would come down hard on anyone with an opinion. Thus everybody pretended they did not see Steven Figgs odd apearance at all. As everyone were ten times happier to have Steven Figg there instead of mr Dursley himself. That was the common agreement whispered around the office. 

What Vernon Dursley didn't know certanley would not kill him. Ofcourse he had never met Steven Figg in entire his life. Nevertheless, he certainly wanted to meet with this person who was going to take his place at his dear Grunnings office. Allthough, after another fisty argument with Hestia, he realized he would only have to take Dedalus and Hestias word that Steven Figg would suffice for the task. He had tried to get a description from them both on what he looked like. However, Hestia had pointback refused to accomodate him on the subject, and that Dedalus Diggle fellow had seemed to find it most amusing that Vernon so desperately had wanted to know Steven Figgs appearance. It was almost like Dedalus had wanted Vernon to keep it going just so he could see how far he would push it before he exploded. However, Vernon held his tounge this time. He did not want the two of them to somehow get the better of him. Vernon made up his own mind about what Steven Figg must look like, and settled with this idea. Not that he would have any choice in the matter anyway. I hardly need to tell you that Vernon Dursleys idea of Stevens apperance was quite the opposite of what was the reality. However, Vernons knowlegde that Steven was a relative of mrs Figgs struck Vernon as a definite advantage to his inturn. Vernon knew her to be a respectable old woman and so he probably was as well. Besides, by using an inturn at Grunnings, he himself did not need to go into the office for a while, for how long he did not know. 

To be able to send any message back and forth to Steven however, Vernon would have to get used to dealing with the owls that lived at the Bee Hive, Hestia told him. They were the only way he would be able to communicate with Steven. Vernon hated the very idea of beeing reduced to such a duty, having to do what he had seen Harry Potter do all those years. He found the whole idea absolutely beneath him, and begged Dudley to borrow that fantastic new Iphone of his. Vernon had heard his son brag about his telephone so much back at home. 

Hestia had to patiently explain to him that no telephone in the world would function where they were at the moment no matter how fantastic it was outside in the real world. This place was simply too magicalfor any telephone signal to find them. She told him that to his great fortune Ax kept a whole handful of owls, therefore he really could write to Steven as often as he would like. As long as he took care not to use the same owl twice the same day. He also had to send the owls at a different time of the day so that no one would discover any pattern of the owles flying around the country. Vernon was in shock at theese news and could hardly believe his own ears. He simply shook his head trying to think of another possibility for him to send those letters to London. Naturally he was unsuccessfull, and was therefore forced to resign.

Another bedroom upstairs was now made into an office to Vernons disposition. Hestia had done some magic to the room turning it from a bedroom with oldfashioned wallpaper into a rather snug and cosy office. She had conjured up a writing desk in the middle of the room with a couple of candle lanterns on each side, and an oldfashioned office chair to match. Then she equipped the desk with plenty of parchment, quill and ink. She was rather proud of her acchivement, she felt like she had made the room look ever so cosy. She had even kept the room with both curtains and the colour of the walls in a rather masculine style for him. The wall paper was removed and the walls had been magiclly painted in a light grey colour. The curtains had a sligthly darker shade of grey and the floorboards were almost black from the sunlight darkening it. An oldfashioned gas lamp was hanging from the celing to give the room better light, and several other lanterns were hanging on the walls to give him the best light to work in. There were also different tall wooden shelves made of dark wood placed around the walls filled with books of different assortement. In addittion to a filing cabinet for Vernons own use. Hestia had done all this to give Vernon a feeling of having his own little library, and she very much hoped he would like what she had done to it.

Vernon entered the room, looked around it and actually nodded in approvement. Then he looked down at the ink and paper sitting on the desk in great disbelief and asked her what the hell she thought he was going to do with that stuff? She looked at him as if he had fallen down from the skies and explained slowly and clearly to him that he was going to use it for writing. He looked at her like a bull about to explode and told her that he was not used to write using such medieval equippement. He needed a computer or at least a typewriter. 

To Vernons luck Dedalus had followed them upstairs and was standing in the doorway leaning on the doorframe, chuckling a little to himself shaking his head in disbelief. He found this particular muggle most interesting and entertaining. He had heard what Vernon had said though, and uttered a small "Ah", turned away into the hallway so that Vernon would not actually see him perform magic. When Dedalus turned around again he was indeed holding an oldfashioned typewriter. He entered the room and placed it on the middle of the desk. Vernon had stopped talking and actually found that he could use this one. Vernon tried out the chair and found that everything was comfortabe and neat actually, but ofcourse he failed to mention any of that to Hestia.

Hestia left the room feeling snubbed for any compliments he could have given her for the nice office she had provided for him. Here she actually had put some effort into pleasing him and trying to make some sort of reconsiliatoin with him and had somehow failed she felt. She found Vernon Dursley as stubborn as any person in the world. She sighed and wondered to herself how on earth she would survive living together with this immensely bigoted person, and for how long she could possibly go without hexing him into something discusting! She ususally was a rather patient person, but Vernon kept on testing her on every aspect and with every chance he possibly could find. In addittion he quite openly disliked Harry Potter, and he was not afraid to say so. She really wanted to punish him for that somehow, but told herself that she would have to be the bigger person of the two of them and refrained.

Upstairs on the first floor Vernon now only had eyes for the typewriter. Dedalus asked him if he needed anythig else. Vernon, now feeling a little more inclined to like Dedalus because he provided him with that typewriter, desperately told him he needed help sending his letters. He refused to touch those ruddy birds, he said. Dedalus did not particularly like the way he talked about one of the most useful and intelligent creatures in the world. But patiently as he was, he let the comment slide and told Vernon that he would help him to get started with it. I probably do not have to tell you that this was a task that took much longer time than Dedalus had anticipated when he initially proposed it to Vernon. However he made him manage it himself in the end, believe it ot not.

This way Vernon occupied the smallest bedroom upstairs as an office. After a while he found everything quite satisfying under the circumstances actually. He was now dodging the traffic back and forth into the city. It was only a short way downstairs if he wanted a nice cup of coffee, or something tasty to eat. He could work whenever he wanted, and take a break whenever he liked. He could even take a break during the day and just doze off outside in the garden.  Ax had a nice gazeebo there to sit in if he wanted to. But the best part of the entire garden, in Vernons opinion, was that Ax had put up a hammock between two apple trees in a secluded and shadeful part, and Vernon came to quite enjoy that particular place. More often than not did he stretch himself out there an read his newspaper in utter peace and quiet. He even sometimes fell asleep there for a half hour or so. He kept thinking with delight that nobody from the office would ever know about this luxury. 

He even started pondering that perhaps he could keep this up when he came back home to Surry. Staying at home and keeping his inturn at the office. Just as soon as ”this You-Who-thingy” popped a clogg and left them all alone, he thought. He still wasn´t sure what all the fuss was about. Since he never had as much as liked Harry, and Vernon really didn´t care what happened to the Wizarding world. He did not belong there. However, as long as Petunia and Dudley found it all this improtant, he would go along with it. Besides, Ax also had turned out to be in possession of the smoothest brandy he had ever tasted, and some of the finest cigars he had ever tried out. Therefore, he could certainly live like this for a little while he thought. In addition to all of this, he had calculated that he and his family actually was saving a whole lot of money just by staying here and living off on Ax´s expence. All the gas-, groceries- and other expences he saved by staying there would give him a fine little haul of money. That thought gave Vernon quite some satisfaction. 

He did not wish to stay there for ever or anything. Nevertheless, living here was not too bad after all. If he only did not have to endure that horrible Hestia woman everything would be allright he thought. 

 


	20. Cookie and cooking

The House Elves at the Bee Hive divided the chores amongst themselves like this; Cookie did all the cooking and some of the cleaning of the house. Poppy did most the dusting and tidying and washing of the floors. Poppy and Cookie also shared the laundry work between them. Dig worked outside on the farm with the animals and the crops both on the farm and in the vegetable garden. Ofcourse he always had help from Ax and even sometimes from little Bumble. But Ax was growing older and had some gouty issues so he was more of a support to Dig than the one in charge. Dig was the one whom knew the most about farming of the two of them anyway.

It all could sound as if the House Elf family had a lot of work to do, and it could possibly seem like they still were Ax's slaves even though his aunt allegedly had freed them. However in reality all of the house elves could do magic and if you gave them say a huge pile of clothes for washing they would basicly only lift a finger and the laundry would start washing itself. Another flick of the finger and the clothes would be neatly hanging on a line and drying up faster than you could blink. They could also make the clothes iron and fold before dividing itself into neat stacks, then they would be magically transferred into their rightful owners room. So basically they did not do allot of hard labour like if a muggle would have to do all of that work.

When it came to the matter of all the cooking at the Bee Hive Petunia knew that she wanted to personally congratulate the house elf in charge of the food. Every meal had simply been magnificent every day. Petunia had met with the house elf called Cookie at mealtimes, therefore she perfectly knew her by appearances. However Cookie did not linger in the room with them as the two houes elf children did, nor did her husband. They always kept themselves busy after meals and out of the way otherwise. Even though she knew that usually they were Ax´s company after a meal.

Now Petunia felt that it was about time she had a little chat with this Cookie elf. Needless to say, Petunia had changed her mind completely rergarding how she felt about the house elves and their appearances. She found that she did not care all that much about how they looked when you were able to make all of this magnificent food. Besides, she had somehow befriended that young elf called Poppy and she was really nice enough when she just had become willing to learn how to clean a house properly from her. Therefore Petunia thought that her mother would become even easier for her to befriend, as she knew that the two of them had their love for food in common. She simply knew that a person whom had the abilities to make such wonderful food must have great love for it too. 

Petunia was littereally aching to see Coockie alone and praise her for the wonderful cooking herself. She also was keen to learn something from her if she would be bothered. Perhaps she could even get her hands on some of theese delicious recepies of hers. There was a particular apple tart and a lovely gravy she espesically had in mind. 

However, Petunia certainly did not want her husband to know what she was planning to do. She knew he would simply not approve of it at all. He still even had a hard time sitting down at the same table as them during mealtimes. He found them utterly discusting she knew, and had questioned her over and over again how she could bare beeing in the company of that stunted Poppy-child when Petunia had helped her clean the house. Petunina did not want him to make her feel ashamed of herself because she wanted to learn how Cookie was doing all of her magnificent cooking.

Therefore she had decided that he had better not know about any of it. Petunia herself had hinted more than once to her husband that she did not mind the house elfs appearance anymore, that she had grown rather accustomed to them. Her husband on the other hand, was not that easily moved, as she was very well aware.

Petunia sat Ax down in the gazeebo one morning she knew her husband to be upstairs in his office, telling Ax about her wish to talk to Cookie. She did not want it to sound anything like when she was complaining to him about Poppy, so she had to make him understand that she really appreciated Cookies cooking and that she herself had a great pashion for food. She told him that she really would like to learn from her and get better aquainted with her. Ax replied to her that he would be happy to talk to Cookie about it the next day. 

In fact, Cookie did remember the encounter Petunia had had with her daughter Poppy earlier. Because of that she had made quite sure that Petunia would have nothing to complain about regarding any of the food she had been preparing for them. Therefore, when Ax told Cookie about the compliments she had earned from Petunia she was rather relieved. However she was a little befuddled ragarding the fact that this woman actually loved the delicate art of making food. After thinking about it for a minute or so she told him that she would not mind at all for Petunia to enter her kitchen to talk to her. Seeing as food was Cookies favourite subject in the world, she would not miss the opportunity to share it with somebody else with the same interest. To be honest, Cookie had never in her entire life met anybody who shared her pasion for food. Except for her son Cork, and she found she was more than happy to finally talk to somebody outside the family about it. Cookie was in return a little curious to be talking to someone who was a proper muggle. She had seen her at mealtimes ofcourse but that still was a little awkward all together. In addition the two grown up house elves had felt like retreating themselves from the humans that were visiting the Bee Hive a little, at least to begin with. Cookie had never met any muggles before now. She also was curious about why a human would be interested in keeping a household and cooking, as long as there were house elves to be had, there really would not be any reason for it would there?

Cookies kithcen was a rather huge one so the entire household of the Bee Hive could actually fit in there and it would still feel quite roomy. So if this muggle woman came into her kitchen she would not be in her way much anyway she thought. The kitchen was situated in the ground floor. There were plenty of room under the ceeling, the roof and walls was white and there were checkerboard-tiles in black and white on the floor. In the middle of the room there were a huge island with a white enormous apron-sink placed in the middle of it. This sink was mainly used for washing vegetables and other kind of light useage. The worktop was made of a quite thick dark wood that had many signs of wear and tear on it.  Around two of the walls there were counter upon counter sitting next to eachother with an enormous woodstove in the middle of it. There were another enormous sink sitting at the far end of the counters in some kind of material that could look like concrete. This one was used for washing the huge pans and other large things. The tap for this sink almost looked like a snake coiled up into a peg hanging above it. That made it easy for anyone to rinse off whatever was in the sink. 

There were drawers and cabinet doors wherever you looked and the whole room seemed to be neat, well-organized and not to mention clean. There were shelves above the counters filled with pans and bowls of different assortement. On a third wall you could see doors leading into all sorts of different pantries. On the last wall you would find glass cabinets with all sorts of different serving trays, cups and saucers, plates and all other things you would need in abundance.

Petunia had never set foot into such a kithcen in her entire life and at first she was simply staring around the room gaping and feeling as if she had died and come to the kitchen-heaven or something like that. It took her several minutes before she could even spot tiny little Cookie in this vast room that was the kithcen. Then she started to wonder how on earth that tiny little creature could possibly operate this enormous room all by herself. When she noticed that there were little rapms to suit her hight perfectly in front of all the cabinets. As for how she would reach the top shelves she would simply use her magic ofcourse. This room was like the candy Petunia had been dreaming of her entire life, and here it suddenly was right in front of her. Petunia ached to use a kitchen like this. However firstly she needed to get to know this tiny house elf whom actually was the queen of this kithcen.

The two of them approached eachother in apprehension and cautiousness. Not knowing how the other would react to their wishes and fears. Ax had been the one to take Petunia into the kitchen and he felt he was making a new introduction between the two of them. He could sense the tention and was rather afraid of what would come of this. However Petunia had expressed a deep pasion for food and who better to talk to than Cookie, he thought. The three of them sat themselves down on stools to talk a little. To Ax´s great astonishment Petunia was beaming with enthusiasm and litterally lighting up as he had never seen her do before when she started to talk to Cookie. It did not take long before Ax felt like an excess person in the room. So he quietly excused himself and left them to their own company.

The two of them seemed to get along better than you would ever believe. The main reason was ofcourse the topic of food. None of them had ever met anyone else who had the same passion about it like the two of them had. Ofcourse, everybody liked to eat a proper home-made meal that had been carefully prepaired by a loving hand. None of their recipiants truly seemed to deeply care nor appreciate the work and all the delicate details behind it all. Cookie found that inviting Petunia into her kitchen was actually a delight, and her solitary days in there seemed to have ceased. Ofcourse she sometimes had the company of her darling boy Bumble there, and Poppy could pop by whenever she felt like it. But they did not linger there to just talk to her much anymore. Especially after the muggles and the wizards had arrived, she had felt her solitude in the kitchen to be rather pressing.

Petunia had never in her dreams imagined that she would be so lucky as to have met someone like Cookie. She was nothing like she had expected her to be, and the two of them had hit it off with their first sentences. They had talked about how they had learned to cook and how much they both liked it. What they found difficult and what they enjoyed making. The two of them was talking for so long that Cookie almost forgot herself and had to hurry up to get that days lunch started. Petunia was welcome to sit there and wath her if she wanted to, but warned her that she had to use magic to be able to make it. Petunia did sit there and wath her, and ofcourse she was quite astonished about it all. This was not the kind of magic she once had been used to seeing her sister perform. However she found that she really did not mind it at all. She watched Cookie and by the end of it she had decided that she wanted to visit her kitchen as often as she could during their stay at the Bee Hive.

Petunia really wanted to conceal this new friendship of hers from her husband. He did not approve of theese magical creatures at all. He felt they were all unnatural beasts and he did not want to have anything to do with them. Then again he usually stayed upstairs in his study most of the day, or outside in the garden, and from then on Petunia sneaked off into the kitchen whenever she found the opportunity. Otherwise she was outside in the garden tending to the flowerbeds or the hedges surrounding the house. Every now and then she and her husband could be found in the garden where Vernon was stretched out in the hammock, the both of them just sitting in silence while Vernon was reading a newspaper and Petunia perhaps was reading a book from one of the bookshelves in the house. 

Petunia started to really enjoy her stay at the Bee Hive, she had never felt such tranquility in her life. She usually always had something or other to occupy herself with in the house back home at Privet Drive. The only damper this stay had on her otherwise blissful circumstances was that she had a nagging fear for what was going on outside in the real world. She even sometimes thought about her nephew. She kept wondering what he was doing and if he was still alive. One could sometimes find her stop doing whatever she was doing as she gave the air a rather long sigh. She then could stare blankly infront of her for several minutes, have another sigh and pick up what she had been doing again. Vernon ofcourse noticed nothing of the sorts with hiw wife, so he never had any clue about her fears and worries. Nor did he know anything about her new secret in the kitchen of the Bee Hive.


	21. An authors inspiration

Dedalus Diggle was a funny and creative man. He had white whispy hair, ice-blue eyes and a smiling wrinkled face. He found a good portion of humour in almost everything he stumbled upon, and he dearly liked to share it with everybody who cared to listen. His occupation was to be a writer, and nowadays he usually wrote as a freelancer in a coloumn for the tabloid paper called «the Quibbler». 

The editor of this paper was a man called Xenophilius Lovegood. Dedalus and he had been close friends ever since they were young and was attending Hogwarts together. Mr Lovegood had almost lost his mind after his wife Pandoras death that had occured quite a few years ago. Dedalus had been there for his friend and looked after him right after she had died. Xenofilius had somewhat rallied now and had become a central person in the fight against the dark side. His paper was now standing behind Harry Potter and his fight against evil. Dedalus was also a goodfater to Xenos daughter Luna Lovegood and he loved her as if she was his own child. He thought she had the most faboulus imagination and the best creative abilities he had ever seen in a person. Dedalus shared the Lovegoods humor and some of their views of the world, however he did not share their interest in all the Nargels and Crumple-Horned Snorcacks nor any of the other funny animals they were convinced existed but could never be given prove to for the world. Nevertheless he liked to send most of his ideas and his view of things to Xeno and he always recieved excellent feedback from his good old friend. 

In addition to be writing for «the Quibbler», he had once written a book called  "Broken Balls; when fortunes turnes foul". He had earned quite a few galleons on that one when it was published. He had felt so strongly about that book that he had visited it every so often at the Flourish and Blotts bookshop in Diagon Alley. There he would admire the book sitting in its shelf, and he most willingly had signed it to anyone who had cared to buy it. The book had become a rather interesting topic back then for its bold title. It actually was an autobiography of sorts.  

When Dedalus had been a young student at Hogwarts he had found Muggle Studies one of the most interesting topic of them all, and ever since then he had been writing articles about muggles and their lives. However, he had never truly had the opportunity to study them properely since he did not know any muggles personally himself. Allthough he had tried to befriend that man whom briefly employed him at the television shop back then. However, Dedalus had found him a strange and simple kind of man. His sole interest in life was to watch tv all day long. He did not have many friends, and he did not really have much interesting to talk about. Therefore Dedalus had given up on the topic, at least for the time beeing. Sometimes he could watch muggles from afar if he was going to write a story about them, and he would usually end up having to invent the main parts of his stories. Unfortunately his inventions had not always turned out to be accurate, to say the least. He even sometimes had got into trouble with the Ministry because of it.

Now he had been in need of some new inspiration. So when the question of guarding the muggle family of Harry Potter popped up, he volunteered for the position immediately. This gave him the proper opportunity to study muggles up close and they would most likely be able to provide him with enough material for a whole new book. He was longing to write an entire book again and perhaps be able to re-live some of that glory he had gained a little more than seven years ago.

He had already discovered that Vernon Dursleys personality contained enough material for him to write a whole serial of books. However he did not want that, only he found he enjoyed watching this mans mood changing from one second to another. He also noticed that he was quite reluctant to acquire any sort of pride whatsoever regarding his nephew Harry Potter. Vernon Dursley was stubbornly determined to refuse Harry any kind of credit in the world.  

When Dedalus first had met with the Dursleys he had all sorts of questions about them all: How would a muggle relate to a wizard and vice versa? How did a common muggle percept the world they all lived in? How would they react to beeing invited into the wizaridng world? Dedalus actually found he got the best answers from young Dudley Dursley. He certainly had better sense and understanding of things than his father did. Vernon Dursley was a bigoted man with little interest in anything else than his own ideas and perceptions. Allthough, Dedalus found that his wife actually was quite different, as long as her husband was not anywhere around. She tended to take his views on things when he was listenening. When she was alone it was a whole different matter. She was not so reluctant to speak her own mind then. He had noticed that she even could be on the verge of feeling a little proud of Harry Potter from time to time, allthough she did not openly admit to it. At least she would not give him any obvious credit, yet. 

Dedalus realized that at the Bee Hive he had more than only the muggles in his close approximity to use as great writing material. How on earth had he managed to neglect noticing this before he could not comprehend! His own dear friend Arabrax Bricklehust was something of a hero of his own, in Dedalus’s opinion. Dedalus would now dearly like to write an article about Squibs. Perhaps one about Ax in particular. Well, ofcouorse he would have to wait with the publishing of that particular article until they had left the place, and all danger had ceased. He decided he would interview him and then spend his time as he lived at the Bee Hive to study him properely and then publish an article or perhaps even a little book of istructions to wizards on how they could coexist with Squibe or something like that. He wanted to show the wizarding world that Squibs really should be accepted into the magical world like equals and that they should be able to live alongside any witch or wizard. He found that there was really no real reason not to do so. He also wanted to encourage wizards to help Squibs not to feel ashamed of themself just because they could not do magic. How wizards should help them adjust instead of shuffling them out into the muggle world. Squibs could even be of a great asset for wizards in becoming some sort of a brigde between muggles and wizarding societies to coexist. Perhaps they might even become friends, just as he and Ax had been for years he thought. He knew that not many wizards truly befriended Squibs, exept if  they were distant relations or they were friends of friends, or something like that. 

It seemed that Dedalus´s mind and creativity had litterally exploded with ideas and topics for him to write about during the first couple of weeks at the Bee Hive. He realized that there was this one topic that was actually rather interesting, and had always been sitting there right infront of him, staring him in the face. However he had never truly opened his eyes to it before. He could almost not keep still for a moment. It was as if his mind was on heywire. In addition to the topic of muggles and squibs, he realized that here, a whole family of House Elves were happily running around the place. They were living as freed elfs, they had been breeding in abundance and they all seemed to be quite pleased to wear clothes. He would have the very best of oportunities to dwell upon all the subjects that excisted about house elves. Why on earth did a house elf need to be enslaved in the first place? Was it not humans whom had enslaved them to begin with? If so, should they not be able to set them free and make sure they could live happily together with a master or a mistres? Here he himself was a witness to seeing theese elves living as blissfully as anyone at the Bee Hive as freed house elves alongside mankind. Perhaps this was one of the most important topics of them all. He decided there and then that this should become a book all on its own. 

Diggle continued finding interesting topics. For example, there were all of the enlargened bees. Perhaps he would pormote all the good use a bumble bee truly had to contribute to their world. Here he could even interview one of Ax's bees to give him some inside information. That would have to become an article for «the Quibbler». He wanted to stress the point of great necessity the bees entire existance was to all living things. They gave the world flowers, fruit, groceries, honey and many other good and important things thst all humans took for granted. Nowadays bees were almost an endangered species. How on earth could human kind ever let that happen!?

Perhaps he could write a piece in «the Quibbler» about keeping people safe? Enchantments? Charms? Protective spells...? He even thought of a book about beeing a self sufficient farmer. He knew that wizards usually always knew how to be self sufficient though. Exept for the ones living in the big citys. After a couple of weeks at the Bee Hive he could not understand why every human being on the planet, muggle or wizard did not live like this, in stead of working at factories and all sorts of unnatural things. Life at the Bee Hive struck him as incredible romantic and tranquil. He made a note to himself to move out of his dull apartment in London and find himself a place to live somewhere in the countryside from then on. There was a dwelling just outside of Bristol that was rather nice that he might consider.

Well, he certainly had more than enough material to get himself started he thought. More often than not could you find him sitting in a nice secluded part of the garden with his own particular quill called a quick-quotes quill. The quill was hanging in mid air infront of him taking notes of eveything Dedalus said. He also had an old typewriter sitting next to him and everytime he wanted to write down something seriously he pointed his wand at the typewriter and it wrote for him without Dedalus having to even lift a finger.

Dudley happened to come upon him one morning when Dedalus was hard at work. Dudley had been exploring the garden behind the house on his own. When he had been walking just a short way up the hills he had heard somebody talking. He had become rather curious about it so he had hid himself and sneaked up on whomever it was. Dudley had become rooted to the spot seeing that it was Dedalus and how much magic he was using to get his work done. Dudley was impressed on how efficient he actually worked. At first sight it looked like a lot of chaos and paper flying in every direction. However taking a closer look Dudley saw the paper fly through the typewriter, then suddenly one page had finished, as a fresh sheet came flying out of thin air and into the typewriter again. This continued as Dedalus was lying in a patched, many-coloured huge hammock that was floating in mid air. He himself was smoking a pipe dangeling his right foot out of the hammock and lazily pointing his wand at the typewriter as the hammock rocked him gently from side to side. 

Dudley felt a little tinge of jealusy. He would like to be as easy and laidback when he was working on something important. However, he was not a wizard. Dudley certainly had changed his opinion about wizards. He had started to like both Hestia and Dedalus a bit. They certainly was nothing like Harrys friends for sure. He had watched Dedalus for about fifteen minutes when Dedalus suddenly got out of his hammock, flicked his wand once in the air and everything was cleared away again. Then he walked towards the house as if everything he had just done was quite normal. The spot looked as if nobody had been there at all that day. Dudley had been hiding behind a rhododendron bush and were still pondering about what he had just seen when Peter found him a minute or two later and wondered what he was doing. Dudely told him what he had just seen, and Peter told him he was rather impressed that he had not panicked or fainted at all when he had seen all of that magic. Dudley confessed to his little friend that he had quite enjoyed it actually.


	22. Boxing, Dragon and a Pudding

One evening in the middle of august, Vernon proudly told Ax about Dudleys achievements in the boxing-ring and added that it was a great pity that he did not have the opportunity to work on his boxing while he was there, since there were no gym anywhere nearby. 

However, later that day Ax invited Dudley to come downstairs to the basement of the house with him. He told him that if he needed a gym to practice his boxing, he had the perfect solution for him. Ax led him down the hall to a spot where there were no doors at all, there were only a plain white wall in front of them. Ax pointed at the only brick in the wall that was visible and had kept its original red brick colour. Ax then told him that if he touched that particular brick, and said the word «gym» to himself as he focused hard on what he wanted the room to contain, a door would reveal itself. He told him not to be afraid of the door when it appeared. It was almost like that bath Dudley had taken earlier that summer, he said. He would be deciding for himself how much magic he was to surround himself with. Ax showed him how to do it, and told him that one normally had to be a wizard to make particular things like this happen. Except this house was quite a special one, as had his aunt been. She had arranged for Ax to have this «Room of Requirement», as it actually was called. She had always wanted for young Aarabrax to have whatever he needed for as long as he wanted to stay there. Tilly also had wanted the room to be a joy to anyone whom lived there, therefore she had made allowances through the brick to make it accessible to others in the future, not only to her dear nephew.

Ax told Dudley that as long as he fully believed in it, the room would emerge. That particular brick was highly magical and would respond to his wishes for what was to be inside of that room. Ax told him that when he had finished with it and was going to leave the room, he simply had to close the door properly from the outside and the door would dissapear back into the wall quite on its own again.

Ax then told him to give it a go. Dudley touched the stone while thinking of his gym back at Smelting, and indeed a door did reveal itself. Dudley looked at him in disbelief as if he had thought that the old man had been lying to him all that time. Ax just smiled reassuringly to him and told Dudley to open the door and walk inside. They both did. The room was actually there! Dudely could hardly believe it. He looked around the place with his mouth hanging open for several minutes. He was quite stunned and kept checking the room to see if he could spot his classmates anywhere. They were not there ofcourse. Dudley was in some state of a shock, and had a great deal of trouble believing where he actually was. He almost felt that it was a little eerie, and had to pinch his arm quite a few times to know that it was all for real. Ax told him that he would be able to change the room into containing whichever equippement that he wanted. As long as he had a clear vision of what that was, it would appear.  

Dudley spent the entire afternoon down there, enjoying himself immensly. Poppy and Peter joined him and they all had a good time. This way Dudley actually did get his little gym. However, he had sworn to secrecy by Ax to not tell anyone about it. Particularly not his own dad. Because Ax did not think that Vernon Dursley would understand it, and that he may even refuse Dudley to use it since it was this highly magically manufactured. Dudley agreed to it, and felt even more special because of yet another magical secret he was keeping from his parents between him and Ax. All of the house elves knew about it ofcourse. They lived down in the basement and they were more magical than anyone whom usually inhabited the Bee Hive, so naturally they all knew. 

Now Dudley started using the «Room of Requirement» every day, whenever he knew that his father was upstairs working. He brought Peter with him and the two of them went down to the basement, Dudely touched the brick in the wall and wished for it to become a boxing gym. It actually turned out to be an even better one than the one he had used at Smeltings. Because there the gym had been worn down due to many years of use. Nor did the students take very well care of it. In addition, they only had oldfashioned equippments. Dudley however, had been looking in magazines during all of his summer holidays back at Privet Drive, and knew exactly what he would like to have. When he made his first try on the room all by himself he discovered that the room provided all of the best things from the magazines for him only by wishing for it to happen. He thought that all of this was so incredible cool. He actually asked Ax if he possibly could bring some of the stuff that was in that «Room of Requirement» with him back home to Privet Drive when he was going to leave the Bee Hive one day. However, Ax told him he could not, because they were all simply magical and they could not be brought out of the room. He had actually tried once with a rose. It had evaporated into thin air as soon as he had stepped out into the hall. 

Nevertheless, Ax told Dudley that he was more than welcome to return to the Bee Hive anytime if he wanted to utilize the room he said. Except, that would prove somewhat hard if he suddenly did not learn how to apparate Ax told him. Dudley did not understand a word of what he had just said but left it at that, he was far too interested in this room he had just been introduced to.

In addition to the gym-room itself, there also appeared to be a huge changing room or spa-room with an enormous shower and even a seperate room with a swimmingpool. This enabled him to keep up with his training as much as he would like to. Therefore, he either was boxing or he went swimming almost every day. He and Peter spent most of their mornings down there. Peter turned out to be quite an excellent coach. Even though he did not know anything about boxing ofcourse. Neverhteless, the two of them made a good team.

However, after a while Dudley needed someone his size to really sparre with, and that was when Poppy truly started to join them down there. Peter had prepared Dudley of the fact that she was really quite fast and reminded him that she could actually do magic. Dudley however, thought that she could probably help them out somehow. Peter was used to what magic could give you so he had no doubt, but Dudley was not quite used to the fact that magic could get you stuff or help you out like this. He was used to magic beeing something he was at the recieving end for some wizards to laugh at or something. Therefore he really wanted to see if Poppy could help him with this or not.

As it happened, Poppy could indeed help them out. She did a bit of magic and suddenly they had some sort of a life-size-puppy on about Dudleys size that was brought to life by her. The puppy was acting like some kind of a simulator to her, as if she had put on a virtual suit, and was controlling the puppy standing right next to it doing whatever she wanted the puppy to do. At first Dudley did not like it very much. It looked like a dead human walking, and he actually was a little afraid of it. However Poppy made him look a little bit more alive and as if he was ready to take Dudely on any second. Therefore his instincts of protecting himself from the puppy was alert and Dudley soon enough overcame his fear for it. They decided to call the puppy mr Hubert, because he was Dudleys boxing teacher at school.  Dudley described to her approximately what he looked like, and by the end of it he actually had some sort of a resemblance to him. Since mr Hubert represented somewhat a silly person Dudley relaxed alot more around it. Now he was not at all that scary anymore and Dudley could concentrate a little better. There, Dudley all of a sudden had his boxing companion. Poppy proved to be quite good a boxer for never having been trained up or anything. They all had a great time with their work out. However, after only a short while Poppy actually became better than Dudley at this because she was faster than him, and mr Hubert gave Dudley a more and more difficult match. Dudley ended up getting more beaten up than he cared for. Nevertheless, Peter told him to recognize it as good practice for him. He had to manage his anger when loosing a match and use it inside the ring when he punched instead. Peter kept him at it and after a while Dudley became just as good as Poppy again. It did not matter if Dudley recieved a black eye or whatever from the Hubert-Poppy doll. Poppy always managed to heal him back to normality before they left the room. Therefore his parents did not notice anything about him regarding his boxing down in the basement.

This was how Dudley spent his mornings during the last part of august at the Bee Hive. After his boxing lessons he took a long shower and went upstairs to eat lunch with the others. The afternoons he spent in the gardens with Peter, Poppy, Ax and the others. He sometimes was just sitting in the gazeebo talking to Ax, Hestia or Diggle. Dudley did not spend too much time together with his parents. He felt like avoiding them a little. Especially his father. He was aware of the fact that he and his father was somehow growing further and further apart from eachother. Dudley felt as if his father was stuck in his old ways of thinking regarding magic and Harry. Dudley on the other hand, was rather excited about the new way he was looking upon the world. He knew that all of the things he had learned from theese people the past months would stick with him for the rest of his life. 

Dudley also felt like Ax could become a friend for life, despite that he was a rather old man compared to himself. Dudely had never had a male person whom could act like a grand parent or an uncle in any way, and he realized that he had always missed that. He had his Aunt Marge ofcourse, but he never had any interest in talking to her whatsoever. Certainly not about any of her dogs, wich was her favourite and solitare topic. All that was in it for him to be keeping a good relationship with his aunt Marge was the money she provided for him. She was much too alike his father to be any interesting at all. Ax, Hestia and Diggle on the other hand, had much more interesting topics in wich they could enrichen his life. 

The three of them really turned out to be cool people to Dudley. They knew alot more about Harry than he did. They told him about some interesting things that Harry had done. It seemed like the entire wizarding communiy knew about theese things. Only Dudley and his family were ignorant with all of it apparently.  For instance, there had been a game that had played out at Hogwarts called «the Triwizard Tournament» when Harry had been only fourteen years old. Hestia was  one of the people sitting in the comittee, and knew all about it, ofcourse. She told him that someone who had wanted Harry dead had actually placed his name in something called «the Goblet of fire» and thus made sure that Harry was choosen as a fourth champion. He had not been able to get out of it as soon as he had been chosen by that Goblet obviously. She told Dudley about all of the dangerous tasks Harry had to get through there. Allthough, mostly she talked about the dragon. She told him how deadly that dragon was in genereal and how impressed everyone had been with Harry for his pure nerve and his creativity with solving that particular task. She told Dudley about every daring move his cousin had done to get to that golden egg. She even conjured up some sort of a lifesize replica of the dragon to show Dudley what it looked like. It turned out to be so real that Dudley screamed like a little girl and almost pissed his pants. «Wow!», he thought, Harry really had to have some bad-ass guts to face that one. He felt deeply impressed with his cousin. Allthough, admittedly he also became a little bit more afraid of him.

Dudley was incredible puzzeled at how tiny little, scrawny Harry could have had the courage to be facing that one! Dudley, who had not thought much of his cousin at all during his young life, now understood that those dementors he and Harry had met back in Privet Drive really wasn't much of a challenge to him. But to Dudley the Dementors were the worst thing in the world that had ever happened to him. He told Hestia how he felt about it. However,  this time Dudley did not get much sympathy, because Hestia was in an absolute runt telling him that Harry had faced about a hundred of those Dementors all at the same time when he was only thirteen years old. She said that he had managed to get rid of them all quite single handed. That was not even something every grown up wizard was able to do. 

Hestia had not finished her story there though, she told him that Harry also had been facing He who Must Not Be Named several times and escaping him right before he had tried to kill him. Even what Harry had managed to do just back in july was something of a great achievement. Escaping him when you had fully grown up men panicking and dying all around him. Dedalus interveined their conversation at that moment and said that the entire magical comunity was all in utter awe about Harrys continuing ability to survive the Chief Lord. However, many wizards was now getting afraid that Harrys luck was about to run out. Dudley kept wondering how come Harry, during all of the summers he had spent at Privet Drive, never had told them about any of this. Then again he figured out that perhaps Harry did not feel like confiding in them at all. Looking at their history who could really blame him? Still, Dudley figured that all of this was an incredible heavy burden for Harry to carry alone. 

Hestia, Dedalus and Ax was so proud of Harry that they gladly told him all about his other achievements. Vernon and Petunia was not very interested at all and usually went inside the house or left the room when they started to talk about their nephew. Dudley however usually retold his mother all about it. She did not reply much when he told her of theese things, but she didn't make him shut up about it either like his father did. 

Even Peter and Poppy had heard storys about Harry Potter. Poppy told him that Harry was a living legend amongst the elves for freeing Dobby the house elf. She was ever so proud to tell him that she knew Dobby herself a little. Dudley was even told that Dobby had been at the Dursleys house in Privet Drive and actually blown up a pudding at a family dinner or something a long time ago. Dudley hardly believed her on this one. She had to tell him that she had heard it told by Dobby herself. Poppy almost laughed her head off at the thought of this. She mentioned a boss of his fathers and his wife getting a pudding blown up all over the place. 

Dudley then told her his side of the story that they had a serious dinner party for his fathers work connections, and his father actually had got into deep trouble because of it. However, this only made her laugh even harder. Even Peter laughed at it. Dudley pressed how serious it had been for his fathers business, and that he almost lost his order of drills. However on no occation did they take this statement very serious since Vernon turned out to get his order in the end anyway.

After having thought about it for a while, Dudley kind of saw the humor in it too, and sniggered a little together with them. Then Dudley thought out loud that if this was funny to any of them, Harry must have thought it hillarious as well. However, at this pont Hestia interveined and told him that Harry had recieved a warning from the Ministry of magic because of it. Therefore she didn't think he would remember it as slightly amusing at all!


	23. Education

The first of september arrived, and Dudley woke up with a strange feeling in his stomach. He was supposed to have gone to school that day. Except this year he was not allowed to do so. He had believed that he would not mind at all. He thought he would rejoice in his superiority of not beeing forced to go back to school. He realized however, on that very day, that this was not the case. He should have entered into his last year at Smeltings together with his friends, and  that particular day he really felt the loss of them both. All of his best friends would have bought all of their new books, and he imagined that everybody was driving with their families towards the school at that very moment. He had never truly appreciated his school before. It had merely been a place to hang around and for him to be the toughest kid in his group. It also was where he had become a boxing champion and so on. Except, because he was not able to choose to not go back himself, he actually felt a lump in his throat and a knot in his stomach. 

His mother seemed to understand how he felt. However, nothing she ever said could comfort him that day. To him that was the worst day of their stay at the Bee Hive. He asked her if he could only tell his friends about why he wasn´t attending the school at least. Or perhaps he could get an inturn like his father had or something like that? Only he realized that it wouldn´t do at all. There was nothing for it, he would have to let that last year of Smeltings pass him by, and he would have to give some sort of explanation to his friends about it when he got back. If he ever got back. Except, what could he possibly be able to tell them? Nobody would ever believe him if he told the truth anyway. Perhaps they would even think him soft in the head if he actually had told them he had met with an enlargened talking Bee, a house elf family, a house that had grown larger as they had approached it, the talking portraits, the fact that he lived together with a wicth and a wizard, that their car suddenly had deported them from Surrey to Wales from one minute to another and so on. Perhaps all his friends back home would shun him if they knew, like they all did inthose horrible nightmares of his. Neither could they possibly understand anything about the horrors he had gone through with the dementors, nor any of the other things regarding the wizardind world. What ever could he possibly be able to tell them?! The more he thought about it the more he wanted never to see them again.

All of a sudden he felt somehow content to be there, even though he really was in misery about not going to Smeltings. Well, at least at the Bee Hive he did not have to pretend that he knew that another world existed. Dudley tried to keep his spirits up by talking to Peter. They had become quite close friends really. Dudley felt like he could talk to him about anything. Peter knew how he felt about magic, his cousin, he knew about the boxing room, and any other thing there might be for him to talk about. Dudley was really pleased that Peter were there for him. He could usually talk to Poppy as well, only she was more likely to make fun of him as not on most matters regarding magic. He did not need any mocking that day. He simply needed someone to listen to him. 

Petunia truly felt sorry for her only son that day. She also knew that he either would have to go back to Smeltings later to finish his education, something she was sure he would not like the idea of at all, or something else had to happen. She did not want to talk to her husband about this. She knew that he would employ his dear son at Grunnings any day with or without his education completed. However, she did not really think that Dudleys heart would be set on working together with his father for the rest of his life. In addition she really wanted him to finish his education to be able to do well in the world. The last thing she wanted for him was to become a working class man like her old father had been. 

Therefore she had a little heart to heart with Hestia about the entire educational situation of Dudelys. She told her that she knew her son was not a very school-smart individual or anything but she would like for him to be able to get his education completed despite the fact that he could not attend his own school. To Petunias great pleasure and surprise Hestia told her that she actually had been a teacher at a magical elementary school once, and that she would actually be rather pleased to give it a try again if Dudley himself consented to it. Petunia was ever so happy about that and promised her that Dudley would concent to it when he learned what was good for him. However she told Hestia that she did not know his curriculum at all, so they would have to figure that out one way or the other.

Petunia then sat Dudley down in their parlour upstairs when Vernon was in his study, and carefully asked him if he would like to let Hestia tutor him through his last school year. He downright refused to it at first because he was really happy to be able to ditch school for an entire year. However, after a lot of persuation and not to mention tons of bribery from his mother he succumbed. He realized that he would need to finish his education if he were to get a job in the future, and not just work for his father. He did not want to be stuck at his fathers office at all, his mother had been quite right on that score. Therefore he realized that he simply needed to pass his final examinations, and he would rather do it that year rather than being forced to return to Smeltings for his last year later on. When he asked his mother how he was going to manage it though, she surprised himby saying that she had made some sort of a plan together with Hestia.

Hestia had decided she would actually take a trip to Smeltings and figre out every material they would need to go through. She would learn the curricculum they were going to use and duplicate all the books he would need, and check out what sort of equippement she was going to aquire herself. She was giong to leave the Bee Hive for a couple of days in order to check everything out.

She would have to be very careful. She also needed to blend in with the other muggles so that she would not be discovered as a witch in case someone from the other side was watching the school. She had to be careful not be caught as some kind of an impostor either and thus kicked out of the school. Dudley told her all about the school and whereabouts the teachers lounge and offices was located. He also told her how to get in and out of their offices without anyone noticing anything. His mother briefly wondered how on earth he could possibly know about all of this, but left the subject alone. By then his father had taken an interest in Dudleys education too and was trying to be helpful by telling them all that he too had attended Smeltings back in the days. Nobody really cared to listen too closely to him though.

Hestia, Dedalus and Arabrax spent quite a lot of time during the next couple of days carefully planning how she would pull this scheme off. They decided she would impose as an inspector for the school and interview all the teachers and ask them questions about their curriculum and generally about the students there. They sent a letter to the school informing them that she was coming and made them prepare a room for her at the school premises. They planned all the questions she would needed to ask them and how she would manage to get hold of some of the equippment without anybody getting suspicious about it. They configured a muggle name for her and a background story for where she was working. 

Finally Hestia was ready to set out to Smeltings on the seventh of september. She and Petunia spent the moring together upstairs where they did what they could to make Hestia blend in with the other muggles at the school. The two of them had found an outfit from Petunias wardrobe to make Hestia look like quite a different person than she normally did. 

Hestia was about five years older than Petuia, however she actually looked a couple of years younger than her without her huge spectacles and missmatching clothes.She did not have a single wrinkle on her face, except some soft lines around her mouth. She usually had dark bushy flyaway hair under her patched witches hat and her clothes was incredible large on her, they came in all sorts of colours and shapes, put in lair upon lair on top of eachother, so you could not know if she was a little overweight at all or not. In addition, she usually was wearing a black travellinng cloak on top of all of that again if the weather was a little rough. After this morning makeover however, nobody could recognized her at all. Petunia had lent her an old fitted, though quite worn, salmon coloured costume in tweed. Hestia definitely was not overweight at all. Because Petunia was rather skinny and Hestia could fit into her clothes quite nicely. Her curves only filled it in a little better actually. The difference the clothes made on Hestia compared to Peutunia was so huge that Petunia almost could not believe it was the same outfit she had used to wear herself. Besides, the difference it made with a little touch of make up to complete the transformation of Hestia was astonishing. Hestia herself had taken some time, a whole lot of potion, and finally had managed to tame her bushy hair. It was now floating gently on her shoulders in big fluffy curles as if she had stepped right out of a fiftieth century magazine. She conjured up a neat little hat with a pretty flower on it to match her costume, in addition she found a nice little broche that she put on the coats lapel. She had also conjured up a pair of hornrimmed spectacles that fitted the rest of her inspectors-look quite nicely.She had been offered to borrow some high-heeled matching pums from Petunia as well, but decided they would be too difficult and unpractical for her to use. Instead she conjured up some plain flat ones in brown with shoelaces. Now she could pass for beeing a strickt and very intelligent professor at any college or high school. Ax borrowed her a very old briefcase so that it would appear that she had brought a lot of important papers along with her.

Dedalus Digggle actually wolf-whistled at her when she entered the living room, and both Ax and Dudley had to agree with him, she looked stunning and not at all like herself. Hestia was quite satisfied with her looks as well. She, Ax and Diggle had a little chat alone together before she finally  returned to the living room and said her brief goodbyes to the Dursleys. Then she went into the garden and stepped outside the garden fence where she disapparated. 

She was going to be away for five days, and had to live completely as a muggle, or as close to one as possible, so that no Death Eater would detect her in any way. She was convinced that Snape had spilled the beans on her and Dedalus to Voldemort about beeing in the order of the Pohenix and therefore somehow were in league with Harry Potter, so she was to take no chances. She also was convinced that they had placed some Death Eaters to watch Dudleys School. They had made a plan B if she needed to escape quickly and another plan for her to be able to let them know if anyting was the matter. 

It was quite nerve-wrecking knowing that she was going out in the open world again. Dudley actually thought it was incredible daring. All of this trouble she was going to go through simply so that he could get his education completed. Though he was actually rather impressed with her for wanting to put her own life at risk for him just because of this. Dedalus told him that she was quite an acomplished and tough witch and that he was not to worry. Yet, the three of them had been making quite a lot of plans for this little excurtion, if it was not all that dangerous though, Dudley thought.

 


	24. «Ajax and Achillies»

Hestia did not have any trouble finding the school at all. Dudley had been quite accurate in his description. She had told him that she would need to find herself a place somewhere close to the school so that she could have a public but secluded place to apparate into. He had described the train-station house´s lavatory. Luckily he had managed to describe to her the womens lavatory, in stead of the mens.

At Smeltings school Hestia found all of the students rather obnoxious. Even some of the teachers seemed to be rude, not only towards the students but to eachother as well. The students was tought how to look down at people who was a little different than what was concidered the normality. All the students even had rods to go with their uniforms to whack eachother over the shins for dicipline. Hestia noticed that the teachers quite distinctly had favourites amongst the students, and thoose in favour was never diciplined, the others would be twice as much so. She also understood that Dudley was one of the teachers favourite. She learned quite early on that he was their little boxing champ. Hestia had heard his father call him the same back at the Bee Hive. She now got the gist of where mr Dursley got his attitude from. Mr Dursley had told her that he had attended the very same school in his youth. She looked him up in the system, just for fun, and saw that he had been much feared amongst his fellow students. At least Dudley in his heart, had turned out to be a better person than his father she thought, and if she cold help it even better still.

She interviewed all the teachers and some of the students as well to make everything seem accurate and exactly as she had planned to do. She did not have any complications acquiring all the books they needed in addition to the curriculum that she needed. For some reason or other she wanted to know a little more about the basics herself so she copied some extra books for her own education. She simply duplicated everything and made the doubles vanish into thin air. She did the same with the equippement she herself would need. She did discover one thing that might turn out to become quite a difficulty though. The fact that all the students used their computers to do bacground checks on different things in addition they all delivered all of their exam papers online. This might become a problem she thought. She did like a challenge in general though, and thought they would be able to solve this difficulty too some way or other when they crossed that bridge. 

The only teacher she actually found accepteble at this school, was the one who taught maths. His name was Professor Higgins. He was a skinny old man in his late fifties who seemed to be rather silent and careful. He was beeing bullied by the teachers as well as the students. The students whacked him for no reason at all with their rods. This was something she did not approve upon at all! Therefore she decided to make it her bussiness to befriend him. He accepted her quite easliy as he did not seem to have many friends amongst his collegues. The two of them had acommodatoins in the same building and she invited him over for tea the very second day of her visit. She had brought some veritas serum along that she put in his tea to make him tell her the absolute truth about the situation at this school. She also asked him why he continued to stay there when they so obviously made his life like hell? He told her that he simply did not have much of a choice in the matter. You see the headmaster of the school had threatened him and said that if he left the school he would make sure he'd never get another job again. He himself was one of the few teachers with a proper education at Smeltings and if he left, the school might be shut down. Many of the other teachers had been given their jobs out of friendships amongst eachother, rather than skills and proper education of teaching. Hestia decided she would like to avenge professor Higgins over the headmaster and all the rest of the school after he had told her a story about the headmaster and him as children. 

When he had finished his story she asked him in earnest if he would mind if she made sure that nobody bullied him ever again. He was quite reluctant at first, but after a couple of days she had gained all of his trust. When she had given him her word and utter protection for the future he finally agreed. He really did not want to live his life that way anymore. They agreed between themselves that he would stay at his chambres the last day of her stay and she would pretend to be him. He did not quite understand how she was going to do that, but she just told him to relax and trust her that she would manage everything for him. She told him she only needed a hair from his head, some clothes of his and she would be fine. He found it all rather peculiar but still he agreed to it. Something truly had to change in his life. Perhaps this woman was the rescue he had been praying for, even if it turned out to be somewhat in a different way than he had dreamed of. She also told him that he was not allowed to see her before after the deed was done. She simply told him to stay put in his room for a couple of hours and she would return to him. She went back to her own chaimbers and put his hair into a little bottle of polyjuicepotion that she had brought along with her, she then drank the potion. After the transformation she put his clothes on the way he would have done it, put her wand up her sleeve and left the premises ready to face the headmaster.

Hestia walked down the hallway towards the headmasters office. She knocked the door and entered. Behind the desk a huge bald man was sitting, puffing a fat cigar. Professor Rogers actually was an old aquaintence of Professor Higgins, they had grown up together and known eachother since kindergarten. However they had split up as George Rogers had been accepted with the cool kids and Joseph Higgins had not. The other kids had made George tease Joseph so much that the breach between them had been forever irriversible. 

Hestia, now impersonating professor Higgins, was standing infront  of  Professor Rogers´s desk. Higgins body that day seemed to be standing more rank than ever, as he told the headmaster that he was not going to beeing bullied by professor Rogers any more from then on. He was also going to tell his collegues and all the students that they should stop bothering him from that day foward. He added that Rogers was going to back him up and make both the students and his collegues stop bothering him. Professor Rogers rose from his chair. Hestia noticed that he was about six feet tall and extremely muscly. He had been the schools boxing champ several years in a row and was all the students, including Dudley´s big hero. He was also rather intimidating by looks only. He was bald, broad shouldered, muscly an had a mean look upon his face. His nose had been broken a couple of times and that did not help him look less intimidating. His fat lips patted the sigar and Hestia noticed that he had a deep and dark, rather loud voice as he replied.

Professor Rogers leanded across his desk, stopped about an inch away from Hestias nose, then he laughed into professor Higgins  face and said: "What are you going to do if I don´t?!" Hestia pulled herself up to professor Higgins´s absolute fullest hight, turned to open the door and gave a loud whistle through her fingers. 

As if out of thin air a pair of angry rotweilers, came running down the hall towards them. Saliva was flying out of their mouths and they looked quite intimidating to anybody stepping out into the hallway at that very moment. They both ran straight into his office and stopped right infront of mr Rogers, barking loudly, ripping at his trouser-leg and growling angrlily at him. Professor Rogers yelped and climbed up onto his office-chair and shouted for Professor Higgins to get them the hell out of there.

The real Professor Higgins had told Hestia that professor Rogers only true fear in life were angry dogs. Who better to present him with then, than two angry rotweilers. Hestia made professor Rogers swear that he never would threaten him ever again, that everybody, teachers and students alike was going to stop bothering him. If not, professor Higgins promised he would set theese hellhounds loose on them all. Hestia also made him increase professor Higgins salary to equal his own. In addition, she made sure he got better premisis than he had at present. She also told professor Rogers that the dogs were to stay by his, Professor Higgins´s, side no matter what happened and wherever he went. Professor Rogers whimpered and agreed to anything he asked, as long as he removed those beastly dogs away from him right then and there. Hestia made him draw up a contract and sign it, highlighting all of the important bits before she asked the dogs to stand down. She left the office toghether with the dogs, and professor Roger left to himself, noticed that it actually wasn't only sweat that had made his clothes all clammy and wet all of a sudden.

Back in her own premises and after the potion had wore off, Hestia changed into her own muggle clothes and returned to professor Higgins´s chambers. He was pleasently surprised to see that she had brought two pretty dogs along with her. He had always loved dogs and she told him that theese was his own to keep. He decided to call them Ajax and Achilles. He had always wanted a dog, but the headmaster had forbidden any kind of dogs as pets since he was so utterly scared of them all. The two dogs settled nicely at his feet as two calm and well behaved puppies.

Then Hestia sat down and told him about the new deals she had made out for him. She handed him the papers the headmaster had signed, and told him he would now be left alone for the rest of his life if he choose to. She also told him that he was going to keep the dogs at his heels at all times for safekeeping. Nobody was going to bully him or hit him one more time with their sticks she told him. He had the premition to set the dogs loose at anyone who tried to treat him badly. The gratitude he felt towards her was not easy to describe with words. He beamed at her as a tear threatened to leave his eyes as he gave her a big hug. He could from this day on be able to endure the environment of the work he loved. Even though he now was in charge of the situation, he did not feel like avenging any of them at all. He simply wished to live a quiet life and give education the way he profferred to do. Except from then on he would not have any difficulty in making his class disiplined and attentive. 

Hestia then had finished the work she had set out to do. She rounded up the equipment she had duplicated from the school and set out to  return to the Bee Hive. She only had to stop by the teachers commonroom to make sure everything was in order with the headmaster and to shake hands with him and his team as the inspector she was imposing to be, before leaving Smeltings behind.


	25. Leaving Smeltings

The day when Hestia were to leave Smeltings school she discovered something out of the ordinary. The instant she had walked through the Schools front doors she noticed a band of people in the street who looked very much out of place. She immediately recognized one of them as mr Travis Goyle. He had quite a distinctive look about him therefore she spotted him at once. He was a short and stout man with no neck at all and a jet black bushy beard that reached him to his belly. He had a limp on his left foot that made him really hard to miss. Hestia knew for certain that he was a Death Eater so she startled a little at this recognition. She had hoped that this trip would be over without any trouble at all, because it really had done so far, that day however she probably had let her guard down a little. Mr Goyle had six other people with him that she did not immediately recognize. Three of them had sort of "a hooligan look" about them and the other three was quite huge with long hair and quite burly, almost with a biker-look without the leather outfits. They were all dressed in black cloaks that reached them to the ankles and they all had heavy boots, and for some reason or other mr Goyle sported a bowler hat that was quite out of place. She expected that some of them were newly recruited Death Eaters or something, since mr Goyle was amongst them. She knew the other side probably wanted to recruit as many people as possible too. Then suddenly, with a pang to her stomach, she recognized another of the men as Muncharr Flint. He had been in Slytherin house back in the days when she herself had attended school and he was already back then as mean as any death eater nowadays. In addition to this she knew he had some troll blood in him so it was in his nature to be cruel. She had a shiver down her spine that she recognized as deep fear. 

She guessed that the men had been stationed there to detect if anything magical should appear at Dudleys school. Hestia cursed under her breath, she had just conjured up two very large roweilers, perhaps they now had a proper clue that someone magical would be present. By now they probably knew that someone who was in contact with Harry Potters family would be at Dudleys school. She knew she did not look like herself at all and she certainly did not look like a witch, however she could not be certain that theese men would not recognize her anyway. Muncharr certainly had a nose for that kind of things, and who knew what kind of tricks their new Master had been teaching them all! 

It was the end of the day and it was quite a busy street. Hestia found she did not have any choice in the matter but to try and get passed them if she were to be able to leave at all. If she turned around and changed direction now they would probably spot her or suspect her for sure. She couldn't do any magic or dissapparate from where she was because they, or some of the muggles who were surrounding her would see her do it for sure. Since she was so thoroughly disguised as a muggle she decided to take the chance and walk past them, blending in as well as possible with all the muggles. 

Except, what she did not recognize about this situation was that all the muggles around her was rather staring at theese men, quite ignorant of how dangerous they actually were, because they looked so completely out of place. Therefore it was only Hestia who was passing them without paying them any attention at all. This was unfortunately a clue that kind of gave her away a little. Three of the men started to follow her down the street. One of them was mr Flint. She could not help herself but turned her head around real quick and saw them coming. This unfortunately, left them in no doubt that she indeed  was a witch dressed up as a muggle, and she had just visited the young mr Dursleys school. They did not know who she was yet though. They all started following her down the street. Hestia desperately tried to shake them off by blending into the crowd, unfortunately for her she happened to stand out a little in her neat outfit. Because hers was more of a sunday outfit than an ordinary thursday-wear, and most women in this colleges neighbourhood wore simple jeans and a trench coat. 

The men followed her into the train-station. There she tried to dodge them by boarding a train. However, the train was held back by one of them and they all managed to enter. Luckily though they got into a different carriage.  She saw them coming closer and closer to her carriage, and she tried to move away as fast as she could into another one without beeing too obvoius. Luckily there was a lot of people onboard and none of the chasers  seemed to want to blow their own cover either, so the silent game of cat and mouse continued. Luckily the train soon entered a new trainstation and Hestia got off. It felt better to not be in such an enclosed compartment. She was shifted away together with the muggle crowd onto the station. She felt that there were so many different people that she actually could have a chance to slip away from them.

Then suddenly, as if out of nowhere, Muncharr Flint was standing right infront of her blocking her way. He smiled his devilish smile at her, revealing his huge yellow teeths and his red gnarled face. His eyes was beetle black and full of malice. He recognized her now. He had always bullied her at Hogwarts but had never been able to quite torture her as he had wished to because of the bloody teachers swarming the place. He had always found this one quite ugly and she had been a suitable prey for him to harass. This was exactly what he had been waiting for his entire lfe. This was a good enough reason why he had even bothered to be standing outside that bleemin school all day long getting cold and got stared at by ignorant and worthless muggles. His little prey was cornered now. He knew he was going to have a little feast on his own. She was not going to be resqued away from him this time for sure. 

Hestia felt her heart beat quite heavily and she saw mr Goyle and the others tighten in a ring around her. She would have to blow her cover or she would get caught in their net. She decided she had to try and get away. She dissapparated, however Flint had anticipated it all. He had grabbed a hold of her throat and he followed in her dissapparation. Fortunately she had not dissapparated straight back to the Bee Hive, but up on a scottish moor. She wanted to have a full vision around her, and she wanted to have control of her environment if she were to fight him. He let go of her as soon as they had got there. He immediately cast a spell around her so that she could not dissapparate again. She could move but not leave the place. She knew she was stuck and that she has to fight him and win to get out of it alive!

Muncharr tried to hex her, but she blocked him. She knew that he was deadly cruel. She had experienced that more than once before back at Hogwarts. She had been bullied by him and he had tried his best to kill her even back then. He had almost broken her neck with his bare hands from trying to suffocate her back then, all the while he had been laughing at her because of her face was reddening. She also knew that she was still a little afraid of him from back in the schooldays. In addition, she knew that she had to try and rid herself of all of this fear if she was going to survive this battle.

Then the duel began for real. He stroke again but missed and she hit him in the face with a charm that made him realize that she was not such an easy prey after all. They fought eachother for about twenty minutes or so. Hestia felt like she was fighting for her life, and she had taken quite a few blows from him, she hardly noticed them though. She had also been able to counter most of his hexes and that gave her confidence. Hestia started to notice that Flint was getting more and more exhausted so she kept him at it, noticing how strong she still felt herself. He was a rather large man with heavy arms and legs, therefore he was not able to move aroud as quicly as she did. Hestia noticed all of this and used it to her advantage. However he was mean and determined, so it was not as if this was an easy fight for her. 

Then, after he had cast another avada cadavra curse that just barely missed her, she managed to hex him with a stunning spell in the middle of his chest.  After that one she quickly gave him a full bodylock spell. He could not move anymore, and she had won the fight. It was all over. She managed to rid herself of the spell he had put on her so that she would be able to dissapparate again. She conjured up ropes that bound him up nice and tight. She knew that if he had won the fight, she would have been killed or worse, for sure. He had tried his best with at least three avada kedavra curses, two that had just missed her, and the other one she had managed to block. Now he laid there on the ground and she wondered what stopped her from paying him back the in same way. He had been torturing her back at school, making her life hell and given her scars that no-one could ever see. 

Then again she thought, she would have been nothing better than the Death Eaters if she did. After all, it was still a mortal sin to take another persons life, even in theese troubled times. Instead she picked up his wand and sent a patronous charm to the magical law inforcement telling them that she had captuerd a possible Death Eater, and told them where to find him. She pocketed his wand and left the place. She did not want to linger around the moor to see who came for him in case it was someone who worked for Voldemort. It was not easy to separate the good from the bad people in the magical world anymore now that the ministry had fallen. She then dissaparated into the middle of Newcastle city, to a quiet street behind a shop she knew very well. She checked thorougly her surroundings that she was not being followed, changed her position to a public lavatory and from inside a cubicle she dissaparated back to the Bee Hive. 

She entered the Bee Hive garden really exhausted and in great pain. Flint obviously had managed to hit her a couple of times and now she really started to feel them. She noticed she had earned herself a rahter bad cut on the left upper thigh and one on her right shoulder. It felt as if she was sore and bruised all over her body. She only hoped he was feeling the same as her or worse. She was bleeding quite a bit and Petunia screamed  out loud as she entered the house.

Petunia had not thought that Hestia would actually be in any real danger at all. However this made her realize the horrors the real world truly represented to all of them. Hestia sat down in the diningroom and briefly retold the encounter with the Death Eaters before Diggle, Ax, Dig and Cookie  all swarmed around her to patch her up. She then actually fainted from exhaustion onto the floor. However Dig the house elf lifted her up as if she was as light as a feather and magically moved her upstairs to her bedroom. Cookie and Poppy then made up her bed to become quite comfortably. Diggle had followed them upstairs and when she came around he reassured her that she was all safe and sound before he gave her a sleeping draft that made her sleep until the next day. 

Ax and Dedalus Diggle then sat down with the Dursleys and the house elves in the livingroom talking about it all and they collectively agreed that nobody would leave the place unless it was absolutely necessary for the time beeing. It was simply too dangerous. They could not be a hundred percent sure that nobody would follow them if they kept popping in and out of the place. Ax and Diggle decided they both would be keeping watch that night as an extra precaution. 


	26. «Troll»

Only two days after returning from Smeltings, Hestia told them all she was ready to get started with Dudleys education. The class room that was provided for Dudley was a small spare bedroom on the ground floor. The windows was facing the back of the house rather than overlooking the garden. It turned out to be rather spacious and nice actually. The walls had been painted in silver grey, and the ceiling had wide wooden beams that was painted in white. Hestia had placed gaslamps around the walls to make sure they had a proper working light. There were no curtains in the windows as she wanted to let as much of the daylight shine into the room as possible. Hestia had conjured up a couple of nice big dark wooden desks for each of them to use. On the wall behind her desk she placed a huge blackboard together with a spunge and chalk on the side. 

She conjured up wooden shelves upon shelves around the walls filled with all kinds of books that Dudley had never seen the likes of before. In addition to this she actually conjured up a small fireplace in the middle of the wall right behind where Dudley was sitting. The effect of it made the room rather cosy, and Dudely quite liked the inviting feeling of his new classroom. It kind of resembled a very oldfashioned, however, tiny little classroom. Except his desk and chair was actually rather large and comfortable concidered the dimensions of the rest of the room. 

Hestia had done all of this for a reason. She needed Dudely to be as comfortable as possible in this learning environment, and she wanted the two of them to be able to organize themselves in the relatively small space they had been given. (Actually Hestia had put an extention charm on the room to make it a little larger, however she did not tell him this to begin with, due to the fact that if his father knew about it, she knew that he probably would refuse his son to enter the room at all.)

Then she equipped the room with all the books and timetables that she had brought back with her from Smeltings, in addition to some other things that makes a proper class room, like a globus, maps, lots of historical or litterary books in all kinds of shapes and sizes, a whole lot of parchments, quills and ink. Dudley did not understand the bit with the parchment, quill and ink however. He was used to lined spiral notebooks, pens or pencils and a rubber. In addition to a computer or a lap top or two. He did not even get a calculator for his math tutoring. Instead she handed him an old abacus to use for his math lessons. He desperately tried to explain to her that he was not used to theese kind of oldfashioned instruments. At this she retorted that she never heard of such nonsense and told him that it was about time then that he learned how to use them. Dudley in earnest tried his best to make his Iphone work, so that he at least had some sort of a working calculator. But the battery had died out weeks ago, and he had no way of recharging it. At this point he really regretted agreeing to this whole education thing and simply wanted to quit it right then and there. Unfortunately for him he had no escaperoute, and soon he realized he was forced to use whatever equippement she had provided for him and to do as she said. 

Hestia turned out to be the most strickt teacher he had ever met in his entire life. Usually he could bully all his teachers into whatever he wanted to, and often as not he ended up simply leaving the classroom together with his best friend Piers and the two of them would sneak into the boys bathroom and have a laugh and a cigarette or two through the rest of the lesson. Here though, he was all alone without any of his friends and with no proper reason to be acting like a bully, exept that he hated studying and the fact that he was a lazy and spoiled brat. He knew that he was not at all bookish or smart so he usually just compensated by beeing a bully up to the point that all the teachers gave up on him. His parents had always said that they did not care about his grades at all, because they wanted to cover for him and show him their support, silly as it may sound. They loved their Dudders too much to have him suffer anything he did not want to do, and they would not want him to feel bad about himself for not understanding. That was the reason whenever he gave up on homework they simply let him quit and told him the answers instead. Besides, his father had always said that he did not want a "nancy boy with his nose in a book all day", so Dudley never really had been taught the  importance of a proper education. 

Hestia however, was a different teacher alltogether. She was not to be bullied. He knew that she was a proper witch who could turn him into a toadstool whenever she wanted to. The problem was that Dudley felt rather inadequate at school, and because of that he found it easier to bully a teacher than to try and learn something from them. In this situation though, he knew he would have to be forced to understand. 

Hestia on the other hand quite liked Dudley, she liked that he was opening up to the magical world,  she could see that he was a totally different person from his father alltogether.  His mother had told her that he was not very schoolsmart so she was somewhat prepared for that. The only thing that remainded to be revealed was how much the attitudes of Smelting School had damaged him towards others. Hestia was rather convinced that if so, she would be able to change him around somehow. 

Dudley had noticed during the time he had spent at the Bee Hive that Hestia seemed to liked him despite his history with Harry, and that in a way, made him feel quite respectful towards her. Besides, during the time they had spent together there, Dudley had come to sort of liking her. She was actually kind of cool. One reason the two of them probably liked eachotner was because more than once he had taken her side when she had argued with his father about Harry Potter. He did not agree with his father and Dudely and Hestia knew they were on the same side regarding this. Hestia was actually rather impressed and proud of him because of this. Hestia had been ever so shocked with the Dursleys attitude towards poor Harry back at Privet Drive that summer, even though she already then had detected Dudleys subtle hinting at actually liking Harry. Only back then she did not see it for what it was, because she did not know him at all. Now they had spent about two months togehter at the Bee Hive she had started to know him better. 

All in all it turned out that she seemed to have some sort of a power over him that no other adult had ever had in his entire life. Inside the classroom she was to be respected without her ever having to tell him so, he just knew it within himself. It was almost like she emitted the same feeling as that old Professor with the long white hair and beard whom had come to fetch Harry the previous summer did. Despite the respect she required, she never did  have to quarrel with him, shout at him or pull his ear or anything. She only needed to give him a stern look, and he obeyed and behaved like a well bred puppydog. 

Their lessons began. She had copied down his timetable and curriculum at his school and they were ready to begin. She started out setting him a test to check how much he already knew. This proved in very handy indeed, because there was not much young Dudley Dursley knew about anything. Well, she thought, then they would simply have to start from scratch! She started teaching Dudley all kinds of basic things he should have learned from his early schooldays, and slowly but surely he started to understand things he should have known years ago. Hestia turned out to be a very skilled and patient teacher with him. She turned out to be exactly what Dudley needed and proved out to be his life-saving education.

Even though Hestia had equipped Dudleys class room with a whole lot of outdated items for him to use, he eventually learned to enjoy them most of the time. By using the abacus he actually understood more of the maths his teachers had tried to make him understand during the years. By simply using a calculator he had never really understood the concept behind it at all.

Nevertheless, the best things with starting his new education was actually the grading system Hestia had set up for him. You had «Outstanding», wich was the very top finest grade, almost unacchivable, then there was «Exceeds expectations» wich was a marvellous accievement, and the last passing grade that was called «Acceptable», but also a good grade to recieve. Then there was «Poor», wich was the first failing grade, but not awfully bad after all. Then there were «Dreadful» wich was the second failing grade and a rather shameful grade to recieve. However, last but not least there was a grade named «Troll», wich was for the ones that did not understand anything of the subject at all. The shame for recieving such a grade was unspeakable. Dudley laughed so hard at that last grade that he had a really hard time stopping. 

That was ofcourse before Hestia presented one of his tests marked with a «Troll» all of his own! He did not laugh at it then. He even told Hestia not to tell anyone about it. He was so ashamed of himself that he lost all self-esteem right there and then. That was when Hestia felt like she perhaps had been a little too hard on him. However, she was standing her ground with it and simply comforted him by telling him that this one test did not matter much. She swore to him that she would not tell anybody about it, but made a mental note to herself that she might need to start on an even lower level with this one.

Hestia noticed that Dudley quite clearly suffered from dyslexia, and that might be one of the reasons he needed to act it all out on his former teachers. He must have been embarrassed about that when he was a kid in a way. Then after he had started bullying everyone to cover that up, he would have kept on using that as his armour she thought. Well, Hestia did not excuse him for it or anything, only now she could understand more of where his feelings for studying was coming from.

She knew Dudley had been bullying Harry something awful when he had been living with them. However, for this she truly blamed Dudleys parents. They were the adults in that house and should not have encouraged somehting like that. If they had been acting as proper adults Dudley would not have become as abnoxious as Hestia imagined that he really could be. She had after all noticed that his mother mollycuddled him rather too much for his own good and for his age. If Petunia had done that to him during all of his life it was no wonder he had become such a spoiled brat. Hestia was determined to do whatever she could to rectify that however.

Hestia had put up a rather strickt schedule for him, every day there was school from eight o'clock until eleven thirty, then they had an hour lunch together with the rest of the inhabitants of the Bee Hive. After that they went back into the classroom and worked up until five o'clock. However, she did not set him any homework. She was totally against that, and believed in tutoring in the shcoolroom only. Then she also made sure that his parents did not have any bad influence on him while working. She understood that they both liked to give him the answers, and she would rather not have them do that anymore. She needed for him to think for himself. 

In the evenings Dudley usually relaxed outside in the garden with Peter, Ax, Poppy and Bumble up until dinner at eight o´clock. School started on mondays and finished on fridays. Dudley also begged Hestia to put in some hours for him to practice his boxing. He told her all about the room of requirement in the dungeons after she had promised that she would keep it a secret from the others. Hestia agreed that it would be very wise for him to get some physical exercise three days a week, so she scheduled it all in with the rest of the timetable. 

This was how Dudley Dursleys passed his week-days at the Bee Hive. Slowly but surely he turned out to learn more that school-year than he had done during his entire education. He actually did not turn out to hate it either after a while, and he realized it wasn't really that difficult after all. He had his own teacher to accomodate his tutoring needs and his own tempo of learning, and that was a tremendus help to him. After a couple of weeks Hestia set him another test to see how much he had learned up until then, and his results was very satisfying indeed. He proudly presented his results to his parents who both swelled with pride, his father clapped him on his shoulder saying he knew he had it in him, and Petunia had a crying fit and threw herself around his shoulders howling loudly as if he had won a gold medal or something. Dudley had never expected them to be so happy about his grades. Allthough he now realized it was a rather nice boost to his self-esteem.


	27. Confusions at the Ministry for Magic

For some reason Vernon could not comprehend, someone from that ruddy Order of the Phoenix felt it necessary to keep them all informed about whatever happened to his stupid nephew Harry Potter. Nevertheless, the very same person at the Bee Hive whom usually complained loudly about the matter, managed to keep his mouth shut about not needing to know anything about Harry at all, those days. Vernon had finally realized that his nephew was the center of attention of this idiotic magical world. It seemed to him that whatever Harry ended up doing was going to reflect upon their own lives. If he lived they had to stay put, but if he died, Vernon imagined that they might be able to return to their good old normal lives again. Therefore he kept on waiting for the news that Harry had popped the clog somehow. This meant that every now and then either Hestia or Dedalus would start a debate on what Harry and his friends were up to those days. Then they all would have to sit around and talk about it like it was the ruddy headline of the days news or something. Vernon did not much like theese eveneings, and usually excused himself quite early. This very evening turned out to be exactly such an occation. However, the topic was somewhat different.

It was just a couple of days after Hestia had returned from Smeltings, and Dudley had just about started his education. They were gathering around the tv set Dudley had brought with him and were about to watch the days news when Hestia entered the room with a rather grave expression on her face. She told them that she had recieved intelligence that somebody actually had broken in to the Ministry for Magic on the second day of September and made a rather great havoc of the Arium amongst other things. The entire Ministry had tried their best to hush it all up, but as the Atrium had been filled with a lot of people the rumours had managed to spread nonetheless. Word had now reached Hestias good friend Doris Crockford, whom had written a letter to her and told her what she knew about it all. 

She told them that there had been some sort of an uproar in the Ministrys Atrium. Dudley did not understand much of what she was talking about, however he understood some of it. A very poweful man working at the Ministry for Magic, called  Alfred Runcorn had suddenly had a change of heart regarding an interrogation of  muggle-borne witches and wizards. They had all been taken in to the Ministry for Magic to prove that they truly were magical. There had been a rumour set out previously, probably by the Daily Prophet itself, about the fact that muggles had tried to infiltrate the magical society for some reason, and the Ministry had decided that they were to investogate the matter properly. Dedalus told them that he had heard about it a couple of weeks earlier and had cursed the ones working at the Ministry for not beeing able to stop them from this utter nonsense. Why ever would muggles try to infiltrate the Ministry for Magic, when they did not even know there existed one!?

However, the morning in question, this man called Runcorn, quite ut of the blue, had demanded that all of the suspects were free to leave the ministry in additon to loudly declaring that all of them had pure blood. Dedalus found this incredible odd and almost unbelievable, seeing as Mr Runcorn had a reputation of beeing rather hateful against muggles in general, and Muggle born wizards he disliked just as much. This Runcorn person also then had made sure all the people whom had been taken in for questioning about their blood status had left the place without any further ado. Dedalus told them this was the oddest thing in the world seeing as Runcorn were one of the people whom had been finding them out and listing people down for the questioning in the first place. It seemed as if he had some longstanding personal grudge against the muggleborn witches and wizards in general and it appeared as if he wanted to dishonour entire family names because some of them happened to be from muggle families. 

Now, the morning of september the second, Runcorn allegedely had turned into becoming this nice guy all of a sudden. Dedalus did not believe in it for a second. He figured something fishy was going on, he just did not know what it could be yet. Dudley asked Dedalus if this Runcorn person could be one of those horrifying Death Eaters. However Dedalus despondently shrugged and shook his head saying that he did not know for sure, he was evil enough to be one though. However, nobody really knew who was what, and nobody ever truely had known for sure. That was the tricky bit with theese Death Eater people. He knew that Runcorn had not been sent to Azkaban with the other Death Eaters when they were rounded up all those years ago for sure. No, he had been working at the Ministry for quite some time now. However he had only the last couple of months been working his way up the Ministry floors and theese days he was working alongside the Magical Law Inforcement staff up on level two. How he had managed to land himself a position that good Dedalus did not know. Seeing as Dedalus knew for a fact that he did not have any education within the field of Law Inforcement. Dedalus knew that Runcorn were somewhat aquainted with the new Minister for Magic. However the two of them did not really seem all that close. If Runcorn truly turned out to be a Death Eater Dedalus more easily could understand how he could have advanced in his career that rapidly. They all knew that bad people had managed to infiltrate the ministry those days, except nobody really talked about it. Dedalus’s friend Mundungus Fletcher had told him that the new Minister for Magic, Pius Thicknesse had started to hang with rather dodgy people lately and that made Dedalus almost certain that Thicknesse had been joining ranks with the Death Eaters just to get his position as Minister for Magic.

It appeared that there were more than this rather abnormal changing of heart by Runcorn that had happened at the Ministry for Magic that very same morning. Runcorn also had left the Ministry together with a woman called Mafalda Hopkirk. Dedalus were convinced that he was abducting her or something. Why on earth would Runcorn of all people leave premises with Mafalda if he did not force her in some way? She did not particurlarly like him Dedalus knew. She had been a friend of Dedalus at school and she detested anything Runcorn did and everything he represented. It was true that she never really had had much courage to stand up for her own opinions, even if she was as clever as they come from Ravenclaw. She had always outsmarted Dedalus himself and that was one of the reasons he liked her so much.  No, Mafalda must be a pawn or a victim of something in a bigger plan of Runcorns, Dedalus decided, since he allegedly had done all of theese peculiar and totally out of caracter-things that morning. Dedalus was convinced something or other would reveal itself any time soon. He only hoped that Mafalda was going to be all right. As long as Runcorn did not bring her to the Chief Death Eater himself. That was Dedalus´s biggest worry. People had been kidnapped up and down the country simply to never resurfacce again and that made the simplest little thing seem omnious and life-threatening to anyone.  Dedalus were sure that this Dark Lord of theirs were behind it all. He told Dudley that he loved causing havoc and fear, and making people dissapear was certainly a scary issue of the days they were all seeing.

The next day, they were sitting around the lunch-table discussing all of theese things over and over again when Hestia recieved an owle from one of her distant friends, Jane McGosseep, carrying intelligence that the Undersecretary for the minister, Dolores Umbridges office had been broken into the very same day, on the second of september. Umbridge had been keeping some sort of  device in her door, like a peep-hole, to keep an eye on what went on outside her office from inside her own door.  This was not really a huge surprise to Hestia seeing as she knew Umbridge to be something of a control freak. Always needing to show the world that she was in charge. Hestia wondered for a second whatever sort of device this could possibly be. However that piece of information was not mentioned in the letter she had recieved. 

Hestias friend, Jane, was quite known for her slander, she told them, she always liked to be the center of attention, and usually exaggerated her storys to make them rather more interesting. Now she had managed to land herself a great position at the Ministry for Magic, working upstairs on Level One. Jane had earlier that summer proudly boasted to Hestia that she had been doing some quite interesting work for one of the undersecretaries up on Level One. However the work itself was classified so she could not convey it to anyone. Allthough she wrote that she was positioned quite perfectly to see Umbridges office. Her letter revealed that this device in Umbridges door now mysteriously had dissapeared. The only person who had been seen entering her office that morning, besides Umbridge herself, had been the Minister for Magic. Thicknesse on the other hand, claimed that he only had entered the room to simply leave Umbridge a message, seeing as he knew very well that she had gone downstairs to question muggleborn people about their blood status. He swore to them all that he had not noticed anything unusual regarding her office door when he had been in there at all. 

It had actually been one of Janes collegues, whom also were placed in the corridoor outside Umbridges office, whom suddenly had realized that there was a big hole in her door after the Minister for Magic had visited her premises. Jane herself were convinced that mr Thicknesse really was the culprit, she was sure he had wanted the device to himself. However she knew that people in general were determined that there had been a break in at the ministry, and her collegues had been talking about it that entire day. Someone that was not supposed to be there had somehow found a way to enter unseen and turned things upside down for some reason or other. Another collegue of Janes were confident that He Who Must Not Be Named had been there himself, quite invisible to them all. Except Jane was almost certain He had not been there. However this convition of hers was mostly based on her not wanting to believe in it. She hardly wanted to believe that He Who Must Not Be Named was truly back from the dead. He was supposed to remain dead in her opinion. Jane did not think anybody other than the ones she had seen with her own eyes passing them, had been there at all. Allthough, she had to admit that they had been visited by some detonator toy-stuff that she was absolutely sure had sneaked up from the department called Experimental Charm. It had caused somewhat of a havoc for them and she and her collegues were rather pleased that Umbridge was not present herslef, or else they would all probably risk beeing punished by her. 

No, Jane were absolutely sure that someone from Experimental Charm had let the device slip out of sight from them. Because they had done something similar to this once before with a poisonous duck, leading to give the whole Experimental Charm department a reputation of beeing rather recless, especially in Janes eyes. The detonator must have happened upon them only a couple of minutes before the Minister himself had entered Umbrides office, and his timing had convinced Jane that it could even have been him setting the detonator loose so that they would not notice him stealing that fancy device in her door. They were all rather busy clearing up the mess the detonators had caused when Thicknesse had entered her office, therefore nobody had noticed the Minister at all before he had closed her office door and left the place.

Miss McGosseep also told them that Umbridge herself allegedly had fainted from all the stress the questioning muggle-borns downstairs in the courtrooms that afternoon had caused. She had happened to hit her head rather badly when she had fallen and was now going to have some days off to get some rest, before returning to the Ministry. Poor thing, she had been taken to St. Mungos hospital for a further examination.

This letter from Hestias friend turned out to give them more questions about what really had happened at the Ministry that day than it truly had answered. Dedalus simply could not bare the tension it created so he sent an owl to his friend Arthur Weasly to see if he could provide them with some more answers about what really had been going on in there that morning. His owl did not return before the next day. However his letter gave them somewhat some more answers than the previous one.

Mr Weasly told Dedalus that the device sitting in Umbridges door had turned out to be their dear late friend Alastor Moodys magical electric-blue eye. He had seen it there himself sitting in her door like a peephole, as he had passed her door a couple of times upstairs on level one. However he could not do or say anything at all about it to Umbridge, since he was one of only a few people whom actually knew that Mad-Eye actually had died and also knew everything about how it had happened that summer. If he revealed that he had witnessed it he probably would be charged with something close to the murder himself he knew. They never had found his body though, however now he at least knew that Umbridge had taken his magical eye as a trophhy to herself, probably not knowing the full story behind his death at all. Or if she did, she certainly did not care, and she probably found the magical eye too cool not to be of some sort of usage to her. Mr Weasly knew that Umbridge did not like Moody much, seeing as he always broke rules to find the culprits he captured, therefore he figured that she did not care much about what actually had happened to him.

Mr Weasly also could confirm to Dedalus that there indeed had been a break in at the ministry on the morning in question. He was not sure about anything at all, but he would not be surprised if it actually had been Harry, his own son and their friend Hermione whom had been doing it. Stealing Mad-Eyes magical eye would have been something Harry easily could have done, he said. Knowing how much Harry loathed Umbridge when she had been a Professor at Hogwarts some years ago, and how much Harry respected Alastor Moody he would not be surprised. Harry would not have let something like that become Umbridges trophy for long if he had seen it sitting there. However, what on earth they could have  been doing inside the Ministry of Magic he was at a total loss. He surely had not seen any of them hanging about. Allthough he knew that Harry was in possession of a rahter rare invisibility cloak. Perhaps the three of them had been hiding underneath it while they lurked about the ministry? He could not be quite sure however, perhaps they even had been impersonating someone at the ministry for all he knew. Something certainly had happened to old Runcorn that morning, he told Dedalus. However that might even have been something of a curse or even a jinx or something. It could also have been orders from his big boss, the chief Death Eater if he was one of those, or perhaps even a trap for all the muggleborns who was supposed to be in for questioning to fall into. Nobody really knew anything about what had truely happened for sure just yet at least.

Mr Weasly also had told Dedalus that a man called Yaxely whom had been together with Umbridge downstairs in the courtrooms that morning had been seen chasing Runcorn into the fireplace in the Ministrys atrium. The word around the Ministry were that something had happened down in the Courtrooms that Yaxely did not approve upon.

Ax then asked his protraits if they had seen anything odd going on in the Ministry that mornong. As it turned out they actually had seen something, however they did not think it had been of any importance on the actual day, therefore they had not rapported anything to them about it. However, now it turned out that they all had different peculiar stories about it. Seeing as many of them actually had witnessed some of it that day. They had not bothered to convey much of the incident to them before because they were not sure about what they had been witnessing. One of the portraits had been placed just outside one of the courtroom doors in the Ministry, and had quite clearly heard Mafalda Hopkirk repeatedly called Albert Runcorn «Harry». Therefore the rumour that it actually had been Harry Potter imposing as Runcorn was now escalating. Allthough, another painting hanging in the Ministrys Atrium claimed that even though Runcorn acted a little odd that day they were certain that it must have been himself all along. Nobody could escape the fact that Harry Potter would most certainly not threaten wizards with investigating their families now would he! Everybody at the Ministry knew what Runcorn had done to Dirk Cresswell and he had now gone missing all together. Before Runcorn had left the Atrium he had even threatened another employee to the same treatment as he had done to mr Cresswell. Therefore the portraits had another dispute to weather Harry Potter actually had been the one to impersonate Runcorn or not. They also rapported that another odd thing about the entire incident was that Runcorns good friend Yaxley had seemed to have argued with him in some way because he had all of a sudden started hexing him before he had chased him into the Atriums fireplace and dissapeared too. Nobody knew what had happened after that, but nobody had seen either Runcorn or Yaxely for the rest of that day.

Even though Hestia did not very much like listening to slander she had answered her friend Jane McGosseep to please let her know how her boss reacted when she discovered what had happened to her office door. If ever Jane was in a position to revealing anything. Hestia knew that with Jane she had to appeal to her sense of journalistic interest and knowledge. Jane had after all an eduation in the field that had not led to much, hence the employment at the Minsistry. Allthough, she knew she still wished to be acknowlegded as an aspiring journalist. Hestia hoped she would see her request as an oportunity to test her skills.

Hestia was not dissapointed. A few days later she recieved another owle from Jane. She could tell her that Umbridge herself was at a total loss about why she had fainted and why she was under attack when she woke up. What she had seen when she woke up was her collegue, Yaxely, fighting off the Dementors from himself just before he stormed out of the courtroom. Umbridge then had had quite a hard time keeping them away from herself after he had left the cortroom. She discovered that she had been left totally alone down in the court rooms with all those horrifying Dementors. She had been fighting for her life to even be able to leave the room. She had fainted again when she had reached the inside of the elevators. That was how they found her when she had reached Level One, and had sent her to St. Mungos for a check up.  

Jane also conveyed to her that she later had happened to hear Umbridge ask Yaxely about why ever she had been abandoned alone downstairs whith theese creatures when she had returned from St. Mungos. Umbridge had been rather shocked about it all and had asked Yaxely why ever he had stormed out of the courtroom like that.

Jane quite clearly had heard him tell her that he thought that Mafalda Hopkirk had been abducted by someone impersonating Alfred Runcorn. He was almost convinced that it had been Harry Potter himself impersonating Runcorn.Yaxely had been chasing them to the Atrium and through the fireplace before they unfortunately had slipped away. This made Umbridge quite loose her marbles, it seemed. She fell into hysterics and demanded a couple of Aurors to simply hunt Harry Potter down. The whole episode ended with the Aurors actually escorting Umbridge back to St. Mungos hospital to calm her down and get her head checked if she had been utterly traumatized by the Dementors, or if she simply was about to loose her sanity.

A couple of days later the Daily Prophet had managed to interview Dolores Umbridge at St. Mungos hospital about her work with the interrogations she had carried out downstairs in the Ministrys Courtrooms. When the paper came out there actually turned out to be some severe consequences for Dolores Umbridge to face. She quite willingly had told them that she did not have anything odd to rapport from the interviews at all. She had been down in the Ministrys Courtrooms together with miss Hopkirk and mr Yaxely. Miss Hopkirk might have been a little unfocused that morning she had told the journalist. However that was not very surprising though, as they all had been in the presence of Dementors the entire morning. This little slip of information to the Daily Prophet by Umbridge turned out to not sit well at all with the Wizengamot borad however. Why on earth would she invite Dementors to the Ministry for a simple hearing?! That sounded to the Wisengamot like nothing less than torture to their prosecuted! Umbridge had even let slip to the journalist that there had been even more than one Dementor accompanying her that morning. It turned out that she had practically invited half the Dementor-staff at Azkaban Prison to join her for simply questioning of innocent people about their blood status! 

The journalist then had concluded that the entire prosecution actually had been totally out of hand. This piece of information forced the Wizengamot to make a severe enquiry on Umbridge herself and what she actually was up to. A week or so later she had landed herself back at the hospital with a bleeding ulcer, before the Wizengamot board sentenced her to Azkaban for a three year long punishment.

Yaxely too had tried to assure the journalists that nothing out of the ordinary had been going on down there, except from Umbridges fainting.

Yaxely certainly had changed his story for the Daily Prophet it seemed, and claimed to the journalist that Mrs Cattermole must have stunned them all somehow because both he himself and Umbridge most certainly had been stunned by someone. When he had woken up he had tried his best to stop all the muggle-borns from leaving the atrium. He had told the journalists that they all had become quite rebellious and had decided to escape from the Ministry and their hearing all together. Yaxely told the press that he unfortunately had managed to let them slip somehow. He did not have any comment about what had happened to Mafalda Hopkirk at all. He seemed to be rather aggravated about the whole incident and he kept cursing under his breath while he shouted «No comment!» to the journalist.

Mr Runcorn too had been attempted to be interviewed by the Daily Prophets journalist that very same afternoon when he had turned up for work again that day, however he did not have anything to say to anybody, and left work again in a hurry. He did not say anything about miss Hopkirk at all, except that he had not seen her all day and did not seem understand whatever any of them were talking about.

Miss Hopkirk herself however, had turned up that day telling the Daily Prophet that she had not been abducted at all. However she must have been stunned somehow because she had woken up just outside the enterance of the Ministry of Magic, in a dark passageway that led to the backstage of the theatre outside in the streets. Now people was free to wildly speculate if she had been put under an unforgivable curse doing dark wizards bidding, or if she indeed had been imposed by someone else from outside the Ministry. 

However, when they had asked Dolores Umbridge about Miss Hopkirk she did not have anything odd to rapport about her. She said that miss Hopkirk had been together with her that mornging. She might have been a little unfocused that day, however this was not very surprising since they both were under rather a huge burden of stress, she claimed. 

Miss Hopkirk herself talked to the press and told them that if she had been seen together with Umbridge down in the courtrooms she certainly had been impersonated by somebody. That would answer her question to why she had been knocked out and hidden in an alleyway outside in the streets. Who the culprit could have been she had no idea, however it must have been a woman, she figured, and a clever one too. She had managed to impersonate her without revealing any of her intentions beforehand. The culprit had stolen a couple of her Ministry for Magic coins to get into the Ministry. Seeing as that was the only thing missing from her purse she somehow was grateful that nothing alltogether worse had happened to her. She was a little disturbed by the mess her impersonater had left her in though. Allthough she could not really understand why someone had impersonated her only to be joining Dolores Umbridge down in the courtrooms all morning. How tedious all that must have been. If her impersonator truly had intended to do some sort of crime she certainly had landed herself in a tricky situation with all those Dementors of Umbridges. Miss Hopkirk then declared that she had decided that her impostors crimes already had been punished by Umbridge and the dementors if that was the case. Perhaps it had been her impostor who had set all those poor mugglebornes free. If so, miss Hopkirk was not going to press any charges on her impostor on that score. Miss Hopkirk downright applauded the one whom had done freed the Mugglebornes, she told the journalist from the Daily Prophet. She found the entire interrogation of them to be totally preposterous she told them. 

The information that Dolores Umbridge had been busted for her crimes once and for all, went down very well indeed with Dedalus. He acted almost like Vernon Dursley when he was gloating his outmost about something. Hestia seemed to be rather pleased with the information herself, however she refrained from Dedalus whooping and openly gloating. 

Dedalus had never liked Umbridge at all, neither it seemed did Hestia. Ax had never even heard of her. Neither had anybody else so the two of them spent about half an hour telling them all about the nastiness that was Dolores Umbridge.

They all cheered miss Hopkirks statement and theory of siding with the muggleborns. She could have been in serious danger though, and Dedalus wrote her a letter telling her to keep her head down and to be careful in the future. 

Whom had actually been impersonating her though, nobody really knew. It could even have been dark wizards, or perhaps some other muggleborns whom wanted to set everyone who was in for questioning free. Or perhaps mr Weasly really had the right theory after all. Then it would have been miss Hermione Granger who had been impersonating miss Hopkirk. If that was the case, Dedalus whooped and cheered them on. He simply loved a rebellion like this. No matter how much Hestia told him that this was utter madness and if it trulely had been Harry and his friends they had cut their luck quite short she imagined. However, the more they talked about them beeing the culprits the more everything fitted. Yaxely did not want to talk about it at all, that must at least have meant that he had been outsmarted by them. That also meant that Harry and his friends must be safe somewhere somehow.

Allthough this theory of mr Weaslys awoken even more speculations and questions that they could not ask anyone but themselves. Things like the fact that perhaps it had been Harry who had really stolen Mad Eyes electric blue eye?! Could it really have been the three of them? If so why on earth would they do something that stupid and foolhardy? They knew perfectly well the Minstry would love to catch them theese days. What was the purpouse of this crazyness!? Had they managed to fulfill their mission whatever that might have been? The discussion did not end for a fortnight, and Vernon was sick of it already on the first day.


	28. Hormones

The entire house elf family living with Arabrax were quite out of the ordinary. Usually house elves were miserable creatures doing all their masters and mistresses bidding. This particular family though, were actually happy beyond what an elf almost was allowed to be. Dig and Cookies children did not know anything about a life not feeling happy, and Ax certainly did not want to make them feel miserable, so he welcomed their happiness. If they were happy, he was happy. 

The youngest of the house elves Bumble was a marry little fellow indeed. He was five years old and he loved everything that had to do with all the animals living there. Perhaps the goats in particular. He played with them, cared for them and he was the one who fed and milked them. Together with Ax and his father he also took care of the bee hives around the garden. He collected the honey and he made sure all the bees were healthy and content. He cleaned the bee hive for them and he spent a lot of time talking to them all. However, he did not mind Dudley becoming best friend with Peter at all. They all got along rather nicely. 

Allthough Dudley did not feel much like hanging with a little baby boy of five at the beginning, after a while however, when Bumble had shown him all of the cool magical stuff he could do, then Dudley did not mind hanging with him so much after all. Mind you, Bumble was fairly young, but the house elves did not have to go to school to learn their magic, they learned it from their parets from the very beginning of their lives.

Bumble was always jolly and smiling. It could actually be rather annoying at times, Dudley thought. Especially if he himself was in a bad mood. Dudley found he really hated it when it rained, beeing cooped up inside the house with nothing to do. Bumble on the other hand simply laughed at the rain and ran outside, not even caring that he got wet in the slightest. Nor did he ever seem to get cold either. Perhaps it had something to do with his elf blood. He could jump up and down in waterpiles. Slide all over the garden on the wet grass and the phrase "singing in the rain" was taken to a whole other level Dudley thought. Bumble could be at it for a whole day if it rained that long. Dudley almost found the whole thing funny, up until he dwelled on his own misery again of not liking the rain very much. Peter also happened to like the rain, therefore Dudley found himself sitting in the windowsill of the livingroom looking out at the two of them enjoying themselves while he was feeling a little gloomy. 

Well, Dudley was no longer a child. He was  a seventeen year old teenager. Except, as a young adult he truly wished to be both old enough to decide for himself. However, every now and then he wanted to be young enough to still be mollycuddled by his mommy. This very rainy october day he felt particularily torn between his own feelings. He would like to be a child again, running around in the rain beeing as free and happy as Bumble was, then the next moment he could not care two straws about it, except he felt bored silly with this whole place and wanted to smash up something or other. 

At this very minute his father had decided he had had enough of work just then, and wanted to come downstairs for a little snack when he found Dudley in the livingroom alone. He started off with what he thought was a jovial joke saying «What's the matter sonny, feeling bored are you?» Wich was like a cue for Dudley to explode on his father. At this point Dudley had aquired himself such a bad temper and wanted nothing more than someone for him to blow it off on. His father turned out to be the perfect object. Ax, Hestia, Dedalus and Petunia entered the living room after a minute or so into their fight, not really understanding a word of what the two of them were fighting about. The both of them just seemed to have some kind of steam they had to vent out somehow. Therefore, three of them decided they would simply let them get on with it. 

Petunia however, tried to interfere, only both of the men in her life agreed that she had nothing to do with this and had better stay out of it. Poor Petunia felt all flustered and in despair about it all, so she started to cry. This made Vernon and Dudley fight even more. Blaming the other saying look what he had done, and the other replying that it was his fault because he had started this fight. This kept going for quite a while. Hestia, Dedalus and Ax brought Petunia back into the kitchen and poured her a glass of brandy. She stopped sobbing after a little while and thanked them all. She had never seen the two of them having a go at eachother like that before. She could not understand why they had started now. 

Hestia told her it probably had to do with them not beeing able to live their lives like they usually would at the moment. That must feel frusterating for the both of them.

Petunia then asked them for how long they thought their stay there would be lasting. The others looked at eachother, shook their heads and told her they honestly did not know. They told her that Harry had explained for the Weaslys that he had been given a task by Dumbledore that everyone suspected had something to do with taking down You know Who. However nobody could say anything for sure, because they really did not know anything. This information somewhat made Petunia a little angry, and she asked them if this magical community really were putting all of their future hopes upon a seventeen year old child to deal with all of their misery?! Where there really no one else grown up and more powerful in their world who could fight this person in Harrys place? Weren't they enough people to take this one Voldy-person on without Harrys help? What kind of imbiciles were they? 

This made Hestia feel shameful. She took her hand and quietly told her that the only person truly brave enough to take him on except perhaps Harry was Professor Dumbledore, and he had deciesed. Dedalus tried to explain to Petunia that it was not a mere question of taking on the chief Death eater as she put it. He had a whole army of helpers by now and they were all highly skilled and deadly dangerous. They also had methods of totruring people to give him information about Harry and his family. That was why they had taken the measures they had to keep her and her family safe from him. But he assured her that Harry had every help he needed from the good side of the magical community, all he needed to do was to ask them. He told Petunia that Harry knew all about this, only at the moment he did not want any help from anybody but his two best friends. He had not even confided in any of the other close friends of his that had offered to help him do whatever it was he was up to. Therefore the entire magical community only needed to sit tight and wait for some clue or other, ready to step up and help Harry and his friends if they needed help. United the community might stand a chance to take the Chief Death Eater down, alone nobody stood a chance against him.

This quieted Petunia. She realized that these people really had done what they could to protect her and her family from harm. They should all be grateful for beeing this well taken care of. She realized that they also could be turing them out any time if they got bored with them. Petunia then apologised to them all for loosing her temper. After that she drained her glass of brandy, got up off her chair and returned into the livingroom where Dudley and Vernon were still at it. Only this time Petunia did not budge. She placed herself right in the middle of the two of them and yelled at them to shut the hell up! She shouted at them that if the two of them kept on acting like ungrateful grumpy overgrown babys and did not stop this ridiculous bickering she would personally hit them both around the head and loock them up in a cupboard somewhere and make sure they were not given anything to eat for a week!!

This schocked them both so much that the two of them fell down into a chair each and simply gaped at her. However, Petunia had not finished with them. She really gave them in and made them feel like the two overgrown cry-babies she had told them they were. She forced them to become grateful to be there, to say they were sorry about fighting to everyone.  She also made them shake hands and promise eachother to behave or else she would punish them both! She earned a good round of applause from Ax, Hestia and Diggle for this speach. From that day onward Dudley and Vernon took great care in treating Petunia more nicely and rather avoiding eachother if they had a bad day. 

Neeither Vernon nor Dudley had ever seen Petunia like this in their entire lives, and they both found they quite admired her for it.


	29. A search for Harry

Bellatrix Lestrange had one mission in life; Finding Harry Potter for her master. She had decided she was going to do so whithout any help from her other Death Eater friends. She did not even want her husband to come with her on this mission. She had no love for him anymore. She saw only Lord Voldemort. The power he provided for her was intriguing. He alone could satisfy her need to feel complete. She loved making a havoc everywhere she went. She had always loved to do so, but she had been refrained to do so all of her life. Only when she had become a prisoner in Azkaban she had lost all of her willpower for showing the world any kind of restrictions. Now that He had freed her she felt truly in peace with herself for the first time of her life. She now allowed herself to do whatever she wanted and it was immensly liberating. She wanted to be the one to murder Harry Potter. She truly did. However she respected the Dark Lord and his wishes, and he had forbidden anybody to do it. He wanted to be the one to do it himself. She could not blame him. Then this was the only restriction she would have to put upon herself theese days, not to be the one to kill Harry Potter. She was only hoping to be the one whom found him and brought him to her Master and Commander. She craved the praise He then would bestow upon her if she was the one who captured him. She loved Lord Voldemort. She loved the way he made her feel. He was deadly dangerous and he had given her almost completely free reigns. He knew that she was just as dangerous too. He knew she did not have any empathy for anyone, therefore he trusted her better than most of their other Death Eater friends. 

She had only pretended to care for others when she had been a young girl. If she had not obeyed, she knew she would have to endure a punishment worse than anyone could bear. Now her dear old father had died, and she was free of him for eternity. She was liberated from all kind of society-rules and from all the people who had been making fun of her. She had personally made sure that none of them ever bothered her again. She only wanted to unshackle the entire Magical community too so that the whole wide world would know who she and her Master was. She wanted the entire world to be at her command. Everybody in the wizarding society already feared her, even some of her Death Eater friends did she knew. They whispered that she had lost her mind in Azkaban. She was aware of that. What of it, she thought. She was unchained from all of their rules, and she loved it. 

Now she had decided to hunt Harry Potter down for herself. She knew approximately whereabout he had grown up. They had all been patrolling the general area where he and his stupid muggle family lived, the day he had been moved from the muggle world into the wizarding world for good. That was when Potter was going to become of age and that bloody spell of Dumbledores was going to brake. Therefore she knew where she would start her search for his family. 

Except she did not know the familys surname proberly. She knew it was not Potter for sure. She knew it started with a D and was something like the Dimwitts or the Dungsleys or something like that. She had probably heard it but she had not bothered to pay close attention, and she actually was a little pissed off with herself about that now. Out of pride she knew she was not going to ask anyone, therefore she decided she was simply going to search the streets of Surry for herself. She needed to keep a low key and not attract too much attention to herself. She was not going to scare them off before she was upon them. Oh, she was going to enjoy torturing them alot. She loved muggles, they were like her stupid little kittens when she was a little girl. How she had loved to see the desperate looks in their eyes just before she was about to end their lives. She had been practising on humans for quite some time now. However, if they were a nobody they did not give her the same satisfaction as if the person really was someone significant.

She had taken on a really famous muggle singer once, she had made him squeale for a long time before she had made him beg for death to come to him. How she had enjoyed that. The stupid muggle world believed that he had taken his own life with a simple overdose. Wich apparently was something common for muggles to do. Poor things they did not have any magic in their lives so they had to make up something artificial to make their lives exiting. They would talk about flying high on a pink sky and see stuff others could not see. Only she knew exactly what that felt like. She knew how to fly fast and high with no safetynet around her. 

All the crazy things she had seen and done, not a drug in the world was better to her than takings someones life. There was nothing sweeter than watching humans beg for mercy she thought. Their last draw of breath when they knew their time was up was the highlight of it all. She knew it, and her Master knew it. Her husband did not understand her craving for murder, he did not enjoy it as she did. Not as much as she did anyway.  

Now, she decided she wanted to capture and at the very least torture Harry Potters family. She wanted to twist every drop of silly information on Harrys whereabouts out of their bodys. She was looking forward to it and she knew her stratigy. Never mind the parents, she would go straight for the pup. She had always known that parents would put their own lives before their pups. 

Or at least, so they usually would. Her own father surely had not been one of them. He had never had any feelings for her whatsoever. And the minute he got the opportunity to sell her out, he did. That was the first time she realized she had it in her to murder a human beeing. She had done it, and she had been glad of it. Ever since that day she had liked the taste of murdering people. She loved to see the light of life dissappear from their eyes. It gave her satisfaction beyond any kind of description.

The stupid muggle family of Harry Potters would not know what had hit them before she had finished with them she thought. Nobody had said anything about not killing Harrys relatives. She would do so gladly. She simply had to be careful not to let them see her coming for them.

For a fortnight she searched through Surry to find them. She had been tought by her master years ago that she needed to sometimes look for magic that was hidden. In this case however there would be magic that had been hidden once, but now would have dissapeared. That made the whole thing even more intricate. She did all she could think of to search for magic by using magic. However it was all gone, she almost had a fit when she discovered this. She really hated to do anything manually, that was the way those bloody ordinary muggles did things. 

However she knew she needed to do it to gain the praise she so desperately craved from her Master. Therefore she searched, and searched. She came upon a school one day where she thought was a possibility the two pups could have attended when they were young children. She stole into the headmasters office that evening, and tried an Acchio spell on Harry Potters file. Except nothing happened. Because for some reason or other they had decided to put Harrys named into Dudleys file. Bellatrix truly had a fit at that moment. Those STUPID muggles was so annoying she hardly had any word for it. Finally she actually found some old papers on him that told her the adress he and Dudley Dursley had lived at when he had attended this dumb muggle school. She sniggered to herself then and turned the office upside down afterwards just for fun. She loved to make everything she touched ino looking as if they had been robbed. She also wanted to light a fire in there, however she refrained herself from doing so since she needed to keep a low profile. She waited until she had stepped outside into the schoolyard, then she set fire to some trash cans. She laughed out loud to herself as she did so. Venting some of her delight into the small kind of havoc she had caused. 

After that she went straight to the adress at no 4 Privet Drive. Allthough when she arrived there she found the house deserted and only their furnitures and all of their ugly artefacts was left behind. She thought they might had gone away on a vacation, or else that nitwit Potter could have warned them that she or her friends might come knocking one day. «Ha ha, he surely was right about that», she thought. She did not want any loose ends to go amiss so she took her time in their livingroom to search for any clues to any place they could be hiding, or if they by chance had any other silly relatives that she could pay any kind of visit. Harry Potter it seemed, only had this idiotic looking family as his single living family. Lucky bastard, she thought. She was encumbered with a large and ridiculus family that she hated the whole lot of. Except perhaps her sister Narcissa. She had been ok. 

Now she was going to take her time to search for anything that might lead her to the Dursleys or to Potter himself.

All of a sudden she stumbled across some family albums of this ugly and fat family. She flicked through it without ceremony. She could not find one single photograph of that stupid Potter boy. It was as if they had tried to hide him away from even the muggles. If she had not known for sure that this was the right house she could have started to doubt herself. One single picture was all she found of Harry in there. It seemed to her that it actually was an accident that Harry was in that picture, because they had only managed to capture half the side of his head. Bellatrix grinned to herself, hoping that Harry had been having a lousy childhood, only to grow up finding the rest of his shortlived life nothing better.

The next photograph her eyes fell upon was of a stucky woman whom she found resembled that ugly, fat pig of a father in the household. She almost wondered if it was him without the moustache. Only the next picture after that again the two of them was sitting next to eachother on a couch looking nausiatingly smug about themselves. It was all Bellatrix could do not to vomit. She flipped the picture around and found the text "me and Marge at mothers". This indicated that at least this porky muggle had a sister somewhere.

 

 


	30. Qudditch

Hestia was rather eager to tell Dudley all about Harry and what she knew about his life at Hogwarts. She had started to understand that Dudley actually loved his cousin deep down, and that he had started to see him in a totally different light since the attack on him by the Dementors. Harry had after all saved his life. 

As time passed Dudley could not help it but became more and more interested in this magical world that he somehow had stepped into. One sunday morning Hestia told him about a wizarding sports game called Quidditch, and explained to him how it was played. However, Dudley could not make out anything of her explanations at all. Therefore Hestia asked Peter if he and his friends would please help her demonstrate how it all was done? They agreed to that with eagerness. Thus she divided fourteen of the bees into two teams. She conjured up a quidditch field in the correct proportion for the bird-sized bees to use, in the far end of the garden. She also provided them with the equipment they needed. For instance; three huge hoops that looked like something children would use to blow soap bubbles through. She placed three of them in some kind of a formation at each end of her quidditch stadium. She then told Dudley that both teams would have a Keeper to make sure the opponing team did not manage to get the ball through their teams hoops.

There were three different kinds off balls for them to use. She explained that one of them was called the Quaffle. That ball was blood-red and usually the size of a basket ball in the muggle world. They were going to use that one for scoring their goals. Three of the players on each team was called the Chasers. They would throw the Quaffle amongst themselves and try not to loose the ball to the other team but score goals with it for their team. She told him that when the chasers scored goals with the quaffle each goal would earn the team ten points. 

Then there was two identical balls called the Bludgers, they were two really mean balls looking exactly like cannonballs, except here they were a whole lot smaller to fit the size of the bees, those balls were there to try and unhinge all of the players on the opposing team. Each team had two Beaters, both of them would be holding a bat to beat the Bludgers towards the opponents to try and make them fly out of their course or loose the quaffle so that they would not be able to score a goal. 

Finally there was a teeny tiny little golden ball she showed him. This ball was called the Snitch. Usually it was the size of a golf ball, but she would have to  make it a bit bigger than a marble for Dudley to be able to see it at all. This ball had its own litle wings, it was moving really fast and was changing directions ever so quickly. There was to be one player on each team that was called the Seeker who was going to try and catch this ball before the other teams Seeker. Whenever one of the teams Seekers had managed to catch the Snitch, the game would be over and it would earn the team a total of 150 points. She then proudly told him that Harry had been the Gryffindors Seeker ever since he had started his education at Hogwarts. He also had been the youngest Seeker in centuries playing Quidditch, because students at Hogwarts was not usually picked for the team until they had learned to use a broomstick properly and that was not until their second year. Only Harry had been picked by his head of house, Professor McGonagal, who had a reputation on beeing a very strickt teacher. Nevertheless he had impressed her so much the first day they were tought how to ride a broom that she had personally made sure that he became one of the Gryffindor quidditch team.

Hestia divided the celected bees into two teams and gave them each a position. Then she explained to Dudley that at Hogwarts there were four houses that played against eachother, two at a time. Her own house, she proudly told him, had been Gryffindor, the very same house Harry belonged to. The bees ofcourse had a great advantage to humans whom usually played the game on brooms. The bees hardly needed broomsticks to fly. She proudly proclaimed to Dudley that she knew for a fact that Harry owed one of the best brooms in the world: A Firebolt! Even the Irish national Quidditch team had been using the same broom as his in the world champion cup three years ago. 

Ok, so now Dudley understood the games rules. Hestia then gave the bees on each team their colours. She gave Peters team the colours of Gryffindor; scarlet and gold. And the opponent team was wearing the Slytherin colour;  green and silver. Hestia said that they ought to call themselves Gryffindor and Slytherin as well, since they had already borrowed their colours. She named Peter captain on his team and he was to play the Seeker, and a Bumble Bee called Marianne was named captain on the other team, she was playing the Keeper. 

Hestia named herself judge of the games, and now they were ready to play. She conjured up a whistle and blew it hard. Then the Bees were off. Dudley had to concentrate hard to keep up with who had the quaffle all the time, and he actually asked Hestia for a time out, wich was an expression she had never even heard of of before. Dudley told her that it ment they had to stop for a minute, because he sort of had forgot who he was supposed to watch, because there was too many things going on at the same time. He asked them if they please could slow down a little bit? He did not manage to follow anything going on in the game, he said. Hestia told him to keep his eyes on the red ball called the Quaffle, and the Bees agreed to slow down a little bit so that Dudley could enjoy the match. They did play for his benefit after all. The score was already 30-20 in the Gryffindor teams favour. Now Dudley managed to keep up with the game. He thought it a rough game, but quite cool actually. Once he got accustomed to the rules and could see in action why they had beaters on each team, because they only made things a lot more difficult, he found he really liked this game. After 20 minutes or so Peter finally caught the snitch and the game was over. Gryffindor won by 110-70 points. 

Dudley asked them if they could play the game once more for him. Ofcourse they could do that Peter said. They had a five minutes break and then they were at it again. Now Slytherin team won by 150-120 points. This time around had been a much rougher game than the last one. Hestia told Dudley that this was usually how rough it was played in real life too. This somehow seemed to appeal to Dudley. After this afternoon the Bees Quiditch games would become a regular entertainment for Dudley during his stay  at the Bee Hive. All the Bees liked it immensly too. They even wondered how come they hadn´t done this before? Ax could tell them the reason. His old aunt Tilly had a cousin who actually had died playing chaser in Hogwarts some fifty years ago. And that made the headmasters at Hogwarts change the rules a little and the judge had to be more impartial and strict if anything went out of control. Hestia could tell Dudley that Harry actually had been attempted murdered by a rouge bludger that someone had meddled with. She did not know who had meddled with it but if she ever found out she promised them she would give them a hard time. Harry had been fine ofcourse she said.

After a while theese two teams knew eachoters moves too well and Dudley asked if theese were the only two teams at this school. Hestia told him no, there was two other teams called Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. And she ended up dividing another fourteen other bees into two quidditch teams. Now they could arrange their own little tournament. Hufflepuff were to play the Slytherin team first. Slytherin team was beeing beat to a pulp, as all the players on the Hufflepuff team had been watching their moves and knew exactly what they would do next. After this the team called Ravenclaw played Gryffindor. Luckily Gryffindor knew by then that the other teams knew their strategy to all ends, therefore Peter encouraged his team to improvize. They all agreed that they should start with their usual moves but that they would suddenly change them up and confuse the Ravenclaws. That way the players became totally unpredictable. Theese tactics made them win the matches between both Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Then in the end Peter and his Gryffindor team was to play the Hufflepuff team. Again the Hufflepuffs had been watching the games between Gryffindor and the other teams. Peter knew this, however he himself had been wathing closely when Hufflepuffs had been playing the other two teams. Therefore, he knew some of their best moves. However, Hufflepuff actually gave them a tough match that lasted for a little more than two hours. In the end the Bee that was playing seeker on Hufflepuff was so exhausted that he almost fell asleap and Peter caught the snitch in the end. They had won by 1140- 1100 and they all went back to their Bee Hive to celabrate. Dudley, Hestia, Ax and Diggle finally went inside the house to get something to eat too. They had all ended up gathering around the tournament, exept from Petunia and Vernon. They had stayed indoors as they did not approve of such nonsense as Vernon had put it. However, they could not force Dudley to understand this as he enjoyed this entertainment so much. Petunia told Vernon that it was harmless as Dudders was only watching. Nevertheless Veron still did not like it. It was all containing too much freaking magic for his taste.

 

 


	31. A History of Magic

One particularly rainy morning in the beginning of October Dudley entered the room they used as a schoolroom, and noticed an old batted book he'd never seen in there before. He looked at the title and read the title half aloud to himself. It was called "A History of Magic", he also read that a woman called Bathilda Bagshot was the author. Dudley was just about to open the book when Hestia entered the room. 

She did not say anything only noticed him holding it and gave him a stern look. Then she reached out her hand and asked him to hand it over. Dudley looked puzzled at her and asked her why and what kind of book it was, then he asked why he cold not look in it. She told him the title of the book, wich he already knew, and seemed unwilling to tell him anything else about it. He knew she could be unreasonably strict about certain things that had to do with magic, so Dudley did not press the matter any further just then.  

Later in the afternoon the same day he was still thinking about the book. This time she was in a far better mood than she had been earlier. He had had a breakthrough in understanding a simple formula in mathemathics, that had  resulted in a full score on a test she had been setting for him. Now they had just finished their schoolday and was wrapping things up when he asked her about the book again. He simply was too curious about everything that had to do with the wizarding world to let it go. Seeing the title of the book had made him burst with curiosity. Not that he was interested in history in general, only this was something to do with the magical community. Dudely had become more and more curious about their world. He knew Hestia well enough by now to trust that she would not hex him into something weird just because he wanted to know about their community. Therefore he dared to press the subject some more.

Hestia told him that it was a book about Wizards history and about all the things they had gone through with muggles during all times of ages. It was not supposed to be read by muggles, because they were not supposed to know they existed at all. Dudley asked her if she could please tell him a lilttle bit about it seeing as he already did know that wizards existed. He reminded her where he and his family were staying. He also claimed to her that he was not supposed to know her nor Dedalus at all, but here they all were. She looked at him a little suspiciously for a few seconds, then agreed to telling him some of their history. 

Some of the things she told him he already knew. The hunt of wizards and witches the muggles been carrying out for centuries, and all the fear muggles had of them because they did not understand. And then the burning of living witches, wich Dudley somehow always had found amusing because of his fathers dislike for abnormality. Now he found that quite discusting alltogether. However, Hestia told him that it did not have the same effect on them as it would have on muggles. If you were a real witch you would only cast a spell so that you could not be burnt. Then one would simply apparate out from the flames into thin air. One only felt a tickeling sensation. And some witches even liked it so much they let themselves be caught several times in different disguises .

But there were more to learn, how they had to go in hiding from the muggles, and how they had protected their homes and even entire villages. Muggles were always none the wiser, and no harm would ever come to them. But wizards and witches always had to be careful when they were out in the open. Dudley was now immensley interested in the subject and asked her if she could please make it as an extra curriqulum activity. Hestia gave it some thought and finally agreeed to it with a "why ever not". He already knew so much about them, he might as well be tought a little more. Besides, both he and his parents would either have a memory charm put on them after their stay at the Bee Hive, or they could have to be tought enough about the wizarding world not to go blabbing about them outside in the muggle world. There was always the "who would believe them anyways". So after discussing it with Dedalus she agreed to Dudleys wish. In addition she  knew that Dudley loved to be there with Ax, Peter and Poppy in this part of the world, he had already been given a good taste of what it was liker there.

She told him about different dwellings around the country that they had casted spells upon to look differently than it really was, so that muggles would not feel interested to explore it too colsely. Theese places had also been given a muggle repellent charm, so that muggles would change their mind on looking into the places, or walking into forests or places where wizards lived. She did not exactly read out loud to him from the book, but she told him about different things and some of the most interesting histories that was not common knowlegde to muggles. She also told him the entire story about how it was the first time You Know Who had gained power. She told him about Harrys parenst and how they had died, how Harry had become the "Boy who lived", and that he had been famous in the wizarding world ever since it had happened. Dudley initially did not know the fact that his cousin was famous, nor that he had been for such a long time. Then he must have been famous in their world as long as he had stayed with Dudleys family. As fas as Dudley knew Harry would not have known about any of it when he was a kid. Dudley wondered to himself if he himself had known about it, if he then would have treated Harry differently than he had done. He was almost certain that he would. His friends would definately have treated Harry differently if they knew, he thought. Piers had a thing for famous people, and were immensley proud that he had met Robbie Williams on the street once when he was younger. He had gone on about that for ever. And everybody thought he was that much cooler because of it.

Hestia and Dedalus had discussed what would happen to the Dursleys if and when You Know Who had been taken down. None of them had any idea how or when that would happen, and thought they might would have to stay there for a very long time. Hestia wanted Dudley and his family, or at least him and his mother to recognize the good side of the wizarding world. She knew he would have no problems seeing it. His father were the big challenge in this family. His mother, Hestia could see, was not too much of a problem given some time.

Dudley had to make some kind of an oath to Hestia never to talk about them to muggles. Dudley dived into it headfirs without any hesitation. Only after he had gone to bed that night he thought that this oath kept him from telling his best friend Piers Polkiss. What a bummer, he thought. But then again, would he believe him at all if he had told him? He could have told him about Harry so many times  during the years before they went in hididng, but he never had. Now he only had taken a vow to not do so, and it really would not make a big difference in the end. He took some time that everning to think about Piers and his other friends, and he wondered if his relationship with them now would become different than it had been before. None of them had ever had to go in hididng from anyone, and he now had more than Harry to conceal. He knew more about the wizarding world at this point than he ever had done before. He had had to acknowlegde that Harrrys world really existed, and that the danger they all were in was for real. How would he ever have the ability to convey to his friends the situation he and his family was in? His entire family would be ridiculed throughout the neighbourhood if they knew. He decided for himself that it did not matter that he did not tell them in the end. If his relationship with his friends had altered he would have to deal with that when he got home. If he ever got home. He had heard Hestia and Dedalus talk to Ax about this Lordy-person getting stronger by the day, and the prospect of ever returning to their normal lives was getting more bleak by the minute. 

Dudley liked the Bee Hive so much he did not really care if he and his family would have to stay there for a good while. He even enjoyed his education now. He had never done that before in his entire life, however this was a totally different setting than it had been at Smeltings, or any other school of his. Here he did not have any friends his age to show off to or compete with. He only had himself and his own level to match. Hestia were by far the best tudor he had ever had. And he liked the way she rewarded him. Usually it was by showing him some extraordinary magic, or conjuring up sweets or drinks for him. No other teacher had ever done that for him. Besides, she had a way of making him understand what she meant better than anyone had ever done before. Or perhaps he had never bothered to even try, he did not know. There were always too many other things he could do instead of paying attention at his schools. Here though, he did not have any choice in the matter. Hestia tested him if he payed attention all the time. Not always with writing tests, but sometimes she simply made him repeat what she had just said if she suspected him not to listen.

 

 


	32. A Visitor

Marjorie Dursley had tried to call her brother several times during the last couple of weeks without beeing at all successful at reaching him. She had finally written him a short letter asking him if he was allright, but she had simply not recieved any answer from him. Now she had decided to travel down to London and pay him a little visit in his office the next day just to make sure that she was worrying for nothing. She did not want to bother Petunia with anything, that was not necessary. She did not plan to go all the way down to Surrey simply to find them all perfectly okay. It would take her only an hour and fifteen minutes one way to get to London by train. She would be back again in good time to feed her dogs if she was quick about it.

It was most likely nothing to worry about at all. The letter could easily have gone astray in the mailing system, with all the riff-raff working at the post office theese days, one never knew. There also was a possibility that something or other were wrong with the telephone line connected to Vernons house, her brother had experienced that once before, and he had been unreachable for a rather long time she remembered. Although with all of theese horrible news on the televisionset about dissappearances and all sorts of strange things up and down the country, one could simply not be too careful theese days it seemed. Not that anyone would have any reason to harm her brother. No, she knew he would never bother to meddle with people of that nasty criminal sort. She knew that perfectly well. Nevertheless, she was a little worried. Perhaps that Harry Potter brat finally had gone ahead and lost his mind for real, and done something harmful to them all. No, she would simply rest easy the next day when she had seen Vernon herself in his office. Ofcourse, she had not spoken to him since june, so she felt a little silly for starting to worry about him now, a full four months later.  However, the two of them always had a somewhat irregular form of contact. They were both busy in their own lives and it was not to be expected that they spoke to eachother all the time. Except, she knew he would have told her if he and Petunia had gone away on a vacation or something for sure. 

Well, there was this one time when she was not at all sure if Petunia and Vernon had been quite honest with her. Petunia had claimed to have broken a nice sculpture the two of them had purchased in London one time, and Marjorie found that rather peculiar since it was not made of china. Perhaps there were something the two of them had wanted to hide from her. Oh, well that did not matter now. She would find out if everything was allright the next day for sure.

About 44 miles North of London in a street called Dukes Road in Braintree there was a black haired haugthy looking woman striding up the middle of the street alone. She was dressed in a pitch black, floor-lengthy, oldfashioned laced-up dress. She had a black velvet travelling-cloak fastened around her neck that was billowing behind her as if the wind was rufling it. She was somehow emitting great powers. Her hair was jet-black, full, long, curly, and messy, as if it had not been properely groomed and cared for in a very long time. It was all in a tangle fixed in a bun on her crown loosely fastened with black raven feathers, that made some of her curls fall to her shoulders here and there. 

If people were looking out of their windows seeing her in the street, they most likely would rapidly retreat themselves and pull the curtains on the very sight of her. People then probably would pretend that they had never even seen her there at all. The woman was well aware that she had an omnious aura about her, and she was wearing it with pride. She walked straight up to the front door of number two, and knocked. She could hear a lot of dogs starting to growle and bark at the door but the ignorant woman inside the house still opened the door. The silly muggle woman did not even regard her own dogs warnings. The woman in black smiled maliciously to herself and thought that this was almost too easy.

Bellatrix Lestrange entered Marjorie Dursleys house a little forcingly without even presenting herself nor telling the one she was visiting what she wanted from her. Marge was so utterly taken by surprise by her looks and behaviour that she did not know how to react or say. Before she even realized it, the strange woman was standing in her hallway emitting a power so forceful it made Marge back up against the opposite wall. The woman had closed the door behind her and was now standing only two feet away from her. Marge actually then remembered that the dogs had been barking a little warningly at the door before she had opened. However, she was not used to meeting danger at her doorstep, therefore she had not hesitated to open the door this morning either. 

Her visitor had not even said a word to her before she had entered, and that had made Marjorie quite numb and paralyzed. The darkhaired woman was staring at her through heavily lidded eyes in a haughty and superior look, as if the entire world was her birthright, somehow pinning her to the wall opposite the front door with her eyes only. It almost seemed to Marge that this tall, thin and oddly dressed woman did not need to blink at all. Bellatrix smiled a visious smile at her while she tipped her head to the right, as if she was a snake taking in its prey before attacking. 

Marge could then see that she retrieved some sort of a stick from up her sleeve, before she pointed it at her and imediately started to demand answers to her questions on the whereabouts of Harry Potter. Marge looked at this deranged woman with shock and incomprehension. However, she told her the truth, that the obnoxious boy would be found at st. Brutus's Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal boys. This complete stranger then looked at Marge in a way to make it clear that her answer annoyed her, and as if she thought her utterly stupid. The woman simply hissed her retrot back into her face; if that was what people had told her? Or was she perhaps simply acting like an ignorant old muggle trying to fool her? Marge did not understand the word muggle, however she somehow felt it was distantly familiar to her. 

This woman was clearly aggrevated and now she positioned herself even closer to Marge, so close that she could feel her dangerous fury emitting from every inch of her body. The woman demanded once again to know where Harry Potter was! Marge whimpered a little and repeated the name of the school Vernon had told her. The woman used her stick to thrust into her chin like a knife. Marge felt it throbbing somehow. However, she did not understand what on earth she thought she was going to do to her with that wooden stick. Then the darkhaired woman hissed her retort to her again; if she was trying to be smart with her??!  Marge realized that she had no escape route away from there, as the woman snarled to her that Harry Potter certainly was not locked up at some stupid muggle prison. If so they all would have known and then he would have been killed a long time ago for sure. She then announced to Marge that Harry Potter was a well known wizard, educated at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and whom she was going to make sure was murdered just after she had finished murdering Marge herself. Her words both astonished and  frightened Marge alot. Harry Potter was famous was he? Well how come she did not know about that then?! Her brother would have told her about that for sure!? Nevertheless, she somehow felt as if this deranged woman really was telling her the truth. Her brother had always seemed a little uptight when talking about his nephew and his whereabouts during the schoolyear. If Harry was somewhere else than her brother had told her, something like this must somehow have been closer to the truth she felt. Besides why would this criminal looking woman come charging down her door if it was not something to do with Harry?!

All of Marges dogs had been barking and growling all the time she had been there, and now they all went haywire around the two of them sensing the earnest danger their mistress was in. They barked and growed and tore at the strange womans dress. Marges favourite dog Ripper actually bit this creepy-looking and angry woman in the shins. That was a cue for Bellatrix Lestrange to really loose her temper. She gave her wand and a flick of her hand, shouted an incantation and suddenly she had killed two of her dogs, Ripper beeing one of them. 

This made Marjorie Dursley start screaming, kicking, fighting and shouting at her. Marge was a fairly large constitutionalized woman and she had been taught by the Colonel next door to stand up for herself and to show the world who was in charge. Therefore she started to kick and shout in outrage at this woman what she thought she was doing?! She had been breaking and entering and had now she had killed two of her best dogs! She screamed that she wanted her to leave her house immediately, and to leave her and her dogs alone! She did not know or care where Harry Potter was going to school and she did not want to see him again if that was what the woman wanted to know!!

Marge had no idea who she was dealing with, and perhaps that was a good thing at the moment. No matter what happened next, Marge wanted to show her that she was not a person to be bullied. Her best weapon was her mouth and this time around her large body. She was used to barking orders to her dogs all the time. This time she was litterally barking for her life at this crazy woman.

Bellatrix had cast a charm on this filthy fat muggle bitch so that she could not reach her with her kicking and hitting. Therefore Marge now simply were trying to assault the air around her. Bellatrix gave her a special omnious smile for that retort and reaction. She almost lovingly hissed back to the old fat woman that she could rest asure that she would never meet Harry Potter again in her entire life, she herself would make sure of that. When Marge did not stop screaming from the top of her lungs the dark-haired woman flicked her wand again and suddleny she had killed two more of her dogs. This this time it actually made Marge shut up and listen to her, standing with her body still pressed rigid towards the wall with her eyes bulging out of their sockets, breathing hard and silently sobbing to herself. Finally realizing that this horrifying woman really meant business. 

Bellatrix then tried again with a different question, still hissing her words quietly to her like a snake; "Where is your brother and his family?!" Marge really did not know this either. This time she vigorously shook her head as she started to talk in panick, telling her with a shaking voice that she had not been able to get a hold of him for a long time. Now she was going to pay her brother a visit at Grunnings the next day, but if he wasn't there perhaps he and Petunia had gone away on a vacation? She knew he was thinking about taking Petunia to New York. But figured out that he wasn´t going to do that until this november, so it probably was too early for that. Then she repeated that she really did not know where he was and she was going to check at his London office the next day. Marge kept babbling to her that she was sure nothing was wrong only she had to know, with all theese strange dissapearances happening all the time.

Bellatrix then sneered at her and informed her that her brothers house was empty. She told her that she had just checked it out herself, and that he and his famiy had left everything behind without any further ado. She then maliciously smiled at her again and almost lovingly told her that it seemed that they had left her behind too. Had her only brohter really not told her that he was going in hiding?! Then perhaps she did not matter to him at all?! Or he certainly would have protected her too wouldn´t he? After all, she was a part of his family, was she not?! Why then would he leave her behind to fend for herself?! He was perfectly well aware of the danger she would have been in if he left her behind. No, Bellatrix said, perhaps he really did not care for her and her dogs at all!? Was it every man for himself perhaps? The ugly, fat woman sobbed harder than ever, gulping for air, while she was constantly shaking her head in disbelief. She kept repeating the word «No!» as truth finally dawned upon her as the last hope of Vernons love for her left her eyes. Bellatrix dearly loved to torture this worthless, old muggle woman into a pulp. 

Bellatrix was also silently convinced to herself that this womans ugly and fat brother had been given help by wizards, or else that Potter brat had been wanting to amuse himself with leaving stink pellets at the empty houses first floor for her. Someone had layed out a booby trap there and she was definately going to torture and murder that person for sure!

Finally Bellatrix told the muggle bitch to shut her filthy mouth and listen up. She then informed her that those stupid dirty muggles calling themselves the Dursleys had gone in hiding simply because they thought they could protect Harry Potter from her own Master, the Dark Lord! But she, Bellatrix Lestrange, had swore to herself she would be the one who "found Harry out", even if she had to upturn every bloody stone in the world! 

Marge had by then stopped sobbing and gulping for air. Now she felt her hatred towards Harry rising in her. It must be all his fault that she was in this mess, she thought. It was probably he whom had taken her brother and her family away from their home and done something to them all. As the deranged woman started to talk about Harry, Marge regained some of her old self again and told her that she could not see what kind of importance little scrawny, ugly Harry could be to anyone, then she told the woman her opinion on the matter and told her to just go ahead with whatever she wanted to do with Harry Potter, she did not care about him at all! Besides she highly doubdted that her brother would do anything to protect Harry, he had always detested the boy. 

Bellatrix wondered if she was trying to be smart with her again, so this time she pulled out her dagger, and put it towards her throat. She made a small cut to make the filthy muggle see her own blood trickeling down her front. Marge froze and started pleading with her. This lunatic, intimidating woman was certainly not to be trifled with, nor would she listen to reason it seemed. 

As a punishment to Marge for beeing smart with her, Bellatrix simply killed all the rest of her dogs. They were all lying strewn on the floor around her and the ugly fat muggle then really started to wail in earnest.

At least it was a bit quieter now the dogs had stopped barking. Bellatrix told her that little stupid Harry Potter had a rescue thing about him. She would like to see if he would respond to that by using her as bait. Harry had tried to rescue people in captivity before, she said. Why not try it again? Marge felt her blood freeze in her veins. Why ever would Harry Potter come to her rescue. She had never liked him much and vice verca. Now she felt she had just spilled her beans on their relationship to this crazy woman and she started fearing for her own life for real. However, she was certainly not going to talk about her relationship to Harry anymore to her. Then she certainly would murder her for sure. 

Bellatrix had now somehow moved Marge into the kitchen and she had made her sit down on a kitchen chair. Marge was so out of it she had hardly noticed anything at all going on around her. Instead she started to try her best to reason with this deranged woman. However she did not dare to rage at her again, therefore she tried to convince her in a softer voice, still sobbing a litttle, that she and Harry was not very close at all because she did not often have the opportunity to visit her brother due to of all her precious dogs. Her brother and his family did not have the opportunity to visit her much either. Coming to think of it they had not visited since the boys were young. Then she started to sob in earnest, thinking of her brother having left her alone in the world, and about all of her precious dogs having all been murdered by this mad woman. 

Everything Marge had told her was true, or what poor Marjorie thought was the truth anyway. However, Bellatrix Lestrange really did not care. She was a stubborn woman and she was bent on winning in this no matter what. This was why she had gone ahead alone to find out about that stupid relative Marjorie, and where ever it was that she lived. Bellatrix Lestrange was determined to be the one who handed Harry over to the Dark Lord singlehandely. She had seen her Dark Lord use this trick on Harry before and he had almost succeded then. She was simply going to finish the work for him. But this silly muggle bitch seemed to be more stupid and bothersome than she had expected. She certainly did not know the whereabouts of Harry, for crying out loud, she didn't even know the fact that Harry was a famous wizard! Nor did she know anything at all on the whereabouts of her brother and his stupid family it seemed.

Bellatrix also realized that if she was to keep this filthy woman a captive for Potter to rescue her, she needed her to stay alive somehow, and already she felt utterly bored with her company. Perhaps she had not thought this plan of hers trough properly. She had realized that if Harry was not particularly close to her and her brother, he might not even bother to resque this one. Besides there were no means for her to let Harry know that she had captivated his aunt, because she did not have the same weird occlumence-connection that her master had with him. Bellatrix soon decided she was getting bored with this filthy woman and her stink, and that she would simply terminate the project. It turned out to be a dead end anyway. Besides, Bellatrix had never really been a very patient person, especially with people she detested. Bellatrix hated all kinds of muggles and mudbloods. This one was only a fat dirty old muggle, even more worthless than she had anticipated. 

Nevertheless, a murder was still sweet to her, and Bellatrix was going to enjoy every minute of torturing this woman. She was going to tell her exactly what she was going to do to her before she did it. She loved the cruciatus curse, she was going to love seeing this stupid cow loose her mind. She cast her spell a couple of times on her, and she enjoyed watching her twitch and jerk on the floor screaming her head off in pain. Bellatrix had cast a muffilato charm on her house so that none of the neighbours would come knocking wandering what was going on in there. That was when the old fat filthy muggle woman panicked completely and soiled herself. In the end she had been whimpering and crying so much that Bellatrix lost her patience with her and simply gave her the final curse. She finished up her work and left the stinking house. Outside in the garden she exhilaratedly conjured the dark mark in the sky above her house and disapparated. Satisfied that she had at least checked out this loose end, and that she had not told anybody about it. Nor had she summoned the Dark Lord by touching her dark mark for this, as so many of the others Death Eaters were likely to do when they thought they were about to capture Harry. 

 


	33. A Lucky Strike

The same day Bellatrix Lestrange had been torturing and murdered Miss Marjorie Dursley, Steven Figg had taken all the personel at Grunnings out on an event. They had closed up the office at twelve o'clock and gone to Hammersmith to see a rather famous British Stand up comic. A meeting he had attended at the Belfast office the previous day had gone so smooth that Steven had decided to celebrate it with his entire staff. How lucky it was that he had done it on exactly that day he would never fully know. Because Bellatrix Lestrange had continued her journey that very same afternoon in her search for Harry Potter. She was still detemined to find something or other on the whereabouts of Harry or his other stupid relations. Therefore she had travelled directly to London to check out that office his sister had mentioned. She might be lucky and find something or someone to torture into telling the truth about them. She still felt as if most of the information she had gained were guesses and things she already knew herself. She simply wanted someone to give her some sort of hard evidence regarding their whereabouts. Because she had no idea what so ever, most likely they had been taken to a city somewhere to be well hidden, except she would not know where in the world that would have been and she just wanted to know already! 

She found the Grunnings office in London all right, just as Marge had let slip in panick. Bellatrix even managed to let herself inside the premises easily enough. Quite a little dissapointed, she found the office all empty that afternoon. Annoyed to a breaking point, she loudly growled to the empty room, utterly aggravated that she was deprived of any more torturing. She had so much wanted to make the day even more worth while in some small way. 

Instead she tried an acchio charm on the office to see if she could find some papers on mr Dursley. Unfortunately for her, Vernons signature were all over the place as he actually had signed a lot of papers in that office, and before she realized it a whole bunch of papers were flying at her covering her completely. She swore under her breath, cast a spell that would make the paper uncover her and picked up one of the papers with his signature on it. The text on it had nothing to do with where he had gone in hiding at all, simply something stupid about a drill of sorts. Bellatrix did not even bother to read any of the other papers she had summoned. She was so pissed off because this stupid little man had not left any information there for her to use, that it took all of her willpower not to turn the entire office upside down. Instead she simply gave the room in general a reversing spell and everything returned to its rightful place. It was one of the most worthless spells she knew. However, her parents had made her use it alot when she had been younger, and she hated it. This time around she had to do it to not make anybody suspect that anything fishy had been going on there. Instead she searched the office manually for a little while without finding anything of use before she decided to leave the place behind just then. She had decided that she could just as easily return some other day and fulfill her job then instead, since there were nobody there at present. She knew she would need to enter the office just as easily then, therefore she refrained herself from making a havoc of the place to not give herself away. She laughed softly to herself picturing the stupid muggles faces when she would be entering their boring and ugly office again. She knew that if anybody gained intelligence that she had been there, something or other would happen that would not make it all that easy for her to enter the place.

Luckily Bellatrix was a witch and not a muggle with any kind of computer skills, because Stevens computer did actually hide quite a lot of information she could have used to find the Dursleys if she had known how to hack it. However Steven had done well, he had hid all kind of other clues of where mr Dursley and his family were hiding in addition to who he himself was, just as a precaution.

The next morning Steven came in a little later than usual. He had also told the others to come in whenever they felt like it. It had been quite a successful evening with perhaps a pint or two too many on his part. He did not notice anything different in the office when he entered it at first, but then he noticed a tiny black bird-feather lying on the floor next to his desk. Black raven feathers he always had felt were omens of danger. He picked it up as he remembered that Bellatrix Lestrange usually liked to decorate herself with theese kind of feathers. A chill went down his spine as he felt his heart miss a beat. If she and her death eater friends actually had paid them a visit it was a damn good thing he had taken everybody out of office the previous afternoon. However he was not sure if anybody had been there the day before, that very same morning or if they still were lingering about unseen somewhere in the office.

He quickly walked around the premises to check if he could see if anything else was out of order, or if he could find clues to whether they still were there somehow. His secretary had arrived just before him and he asked her if she had seen anything different or strange in the office that morning. She actually told him that yes she rather had. She was somehow a little flushed when he spoke to her and he vaguely remembered flirting with her a lot the previous evening. However, there were no time for beeing embarrassed by that just now. She told him that she found some papers she were convinced she had put inside a drawer the previous day, that for some reason or other was lying on the top of her desk in a mess when she had arrived. However, she had thought it was just herself beeing silly. Why did he ask, she wondered. He told her the truth that he suspeted that someone unwelcome actually had payed them a visit and he needed to investigate it some more. Stephen then begged her to simply take the day off. He told her that he would contact her the next day if she and her collegues were safe to return. She left him and Steven then hurried to call the rest of his staff telling them all to take the entire day off. He informed them all that there most likely had been a break-in at the office and he needed peace and quiet to investigate it all. After he had done what he could at the office, he rushed home himself to send an owl to the Bee Hive informing them on the matter. The owl was adressed to Dedalus Diggle and it told him of his suspicions of Death Eaters actually having found Grunnings office. 

This intelligence made Dedalus and Hestia debate what would be best for them to do. They decided they would not go themselves as that would have been too hazardous and probably what the death eaters would have expected. Instead they decided to send Mundungus Fletcher to Grunnings to put a protective charm on the building. He was informed about the danger he might be putting himself into and was told to be careful. Mundungus knew how criminals were thinking, beeing a little half-criminal himself, so he knew that he needed to disguise himself as a muggle in order not to rise any suspicion. He checked the premises and found it all empty, after that he put a protective charm on it so that the muggles working in the entire building were safe. He would also do the same for Steven Figgs house and all of the other co-workers at Grunnings.

Hestia and Dedalus really regretted not having thought of that earlier so that they would not have to be doing this now. However, when they were moving the Dursleys into the Wizarding world they had no idea how anything would turn out to be for anybody. They did not know how far danger would stretch, nor for how long they had to be in hiding.

Later that afternoon they had a new rapport from Stephen that he had conveyed some other rather grave news from his computer at home. Dedalus were still the one to recieve the information and asked the Dursleys to please sit down with him in the livingroom. He then informed them about Marjorie Dursleys unfortunate death. Steven Figg had seen a rapport on the internets news that very same day. Alot of news did not even reach the television news at the moment, seeing as there were so much horrible things going on up and down the country those days. Somebody had been filming outside her house when they had carried her out and then he had noticed the Death Mark in the sky above her house. He had  recognized the surname of the poor lady who had died and wondered if that could be someone related to the Dursleys. The policemen had simply rapported that it was a strange but tragic death. They said that the woman must have lost her mind for some reason or other. She allegedly had killed all of her dogs first and then taken her own life afterwards. All they had conveyed to the public was that this most likely was a personal tragedy. Allthough they had not been able to see the Death Mark in the sky above the house like Steven did. That was when Steven knew for certain that it had to be Death Eaters who had been behind it. In addition to the fact that the diseased most likely had been a relative of the Dursleys at the Bee Hive.

That also gave a definate explanation of the raven-feather lying in Grunnings office that morning. Steven was now convinced that it had been Bellatrix Lestrange whom had murdered Marjorie Dursley, and that she had been the one visiting Grunnings. Dedalus and Hestia did not want to inform any of the Dursleys what a gastly person Bellatrix fully was. They did not need to know all the possible horrors their relative probably had gone through before dying. It was bad enough for them to recieve the news that she was dead. However they wanted to be honest with them and let them know that this was the work of dark wizards.

Vernon went ballistic with theese news. He raged and stormed at them asking them over and over again why they had not protected her as well??! Except they did not know at all that he had a sister untill that very day! Vernon knew to himself that he had simply forgot to tell them all about her! He had not been taking this whole «under-cover-thing» seriously at all, and now his only sister was dead because of it! He never could forgive himself for this. He banged his fists at tabels and walls, shouted his head off in fury and desperation and did not know what to do with himself at all at first, before he broke down into a pulp and started howling like a beated dog. Vernons grief infected them all and both Petunia and Dudley cried their bit about poor aunt Marge and what she had gone through.

Then all of a sudden Vernon simply wanted to be left alone. He went upstairs to their private chambers and did not want to see any of them ever again. Petunia followed him upstiars for a little while, however not even she could get through to him. She returned to the others and excused his rage, and told them all that the two of them both had been so afraid for their own lives when they were moved away from Privet Drive that they had not even thought of Marge, poor thing. None of them had thought it would have been necessary to make her go in hiding. They had not even informed her that they had to leave Privet Drive for a while. Then she told the room at large that they had not even told her that Harry was a wizard, she did not know that there even existed another world of magic. They had tried their best to keep any of that hidden from her the best they could. Because they knew that she would not have understood any of it. Now she regretted not having informed her that they were going away at least. She was the only one that would have any right to know, Petunia felt. If they simply had realized how dangerouos everything really was they might had thought of her safety too. Petunia told them that she had been Vernons only living relative, and he now would simply need some time to mourn her. Ofcourse he was devastated, they all understood that, and left him alone for as long as he needed to. 

Petunia then asked them how she truly had died. Hestia and Dedalys then exchanged looks before Hestia told her that she most likely had been given a simple curse, and that it probably had happened quickly.

Allthough later that evening when all the Dursleys had gone to bed  Ax, Hestia and Dedalus were sitting in the kitchen talking it all over. If it really had been Bellatrix Lestranges handiwork they all truly felt sorry for the poor woman. They were all aware that she liked to torture people into insanity before she took her quarries life. The three of them also decided that this information was better off not conveyed to the Dursleys at all. It would only upset them even more. There were no reason for them knowing all about the horrors of Bellatrix Lestrange. It would only make them even more uneasy about the matter. How could any of them forget to even tell them about Vernons sister they could not comprehend. They must not be very close at all they decided. Hestia knew all about how easy it was for siblings to forget all about their single relatives. They had understood from Petunia that this woman did not have any children, only a whole bunch of dogs, whom acted as her children. Hestia was without a family of her own as well and she knew how easily her own sister could be forgetting about including her in family ocations just because she did not have any children. Hestia really felt sorry for this late sister of Vernons. She felt it was a horrible thing for him to do to leave her out in the open to fend for herself while Vernon hid his big, fat self here. However she would say nothing about it to him. There were no worse punishment to him for this, than the one he currently was giving himself. 

After Dudley had gone to bed that evening he were feeling rather downcast about his aunt too. He had never even thought of his old aunt Marge and the possibility that she might be in danger because of her relation to their family and Harry. It made him realize the profound debth of the danger they all would be in if they were to live outside in the real world at the time. He regretted that they had not protected Marge that evening, and he even regretted that he never really had cared that much about her at all. He regretted that perhaps she had been afraid that day, just as he had been afraid during his dementor attack back then. She had after all been left all alone out there to fend for herself. Then he simply hoped that it had happened quickly for her, just like they had told him and hopefully whithout much pain.

None of them could even attend Marjories funeral, because that would really be too dangerous for them all. Vernon protested loudly on this and simply could not understand why this had happened at all. 

He had asked them all how they were going to arrange her funeral, when Dedalus told him that Mundungus had made one of her neighbours arrange it for her, a colonel of sorts, he had told them. Vernon did not understand why it had to be him and why he could not be able to attend her funeral at all. Dedalus explained to him that if he went to her funeral he would definately end up murdered himself. Because whomever had done this to her would probably have someone keeping an eye out on her funeral to see if he and his family would show up to attend it. Then they would strike and the entire point of going undercover to protect their lives would be completely wasted.

Petunia firmly told him to stay put! She certainly did not want him to be trailed by theese horrible people on his return to the Bee Hive. She wanted him to stay alive in this protected place with her and their son. Ax, Dedalus and Hestia agreed with her on the matter. If he were to attend the funeral he would need an escorte from other wizards and then he would put all of their lives at stake too. No, it would all be for the better to simply stay put, they all were against him on this it seemed. 

Dedalus suggested that instead he could have a little ceremony for her there at the Bee Hive if he wanted to. Then he could visit her grave when it was safe for them to return to the muggle world. Vernon was not alltogehter satisfied with any of this at first, but he knew in his mind that he really did not dare enter into the real world at this point, just to be murdered himself. Therefore he agreed to having a small ceremony in the garden for her the next day. All of them attended and that really moved Vernon into tears again. He knew that this Hestia woman and Dedalus did not know his sister at all. Therefore they were not obliged to attend at all. However, them beeing there to show him their support actually meant alot to him that day. He did not say anything about it to them though. He felt that they did not have that close of a relationship alltoghether. 

The house elf called Dig actually had produced some enormously huge flowers that someone had decorated the gazeebo with quite nicely, to almost make it look like an altar. Ax then took it upon himself to get up and say a few words about loss and life for them, that somehow made sense to Vernon in a way. Then Vernon got up and simply said «Goodbye Marge» before he left the gazeebo and went inside the house again to cry some more.  In the afternoon they had a nice but quiet dinner. Afterwards Ax poured them all a glass of brandy and asked them to raise their glass to Vernons sister. It was all rather nicely done, and Vernon thought that it really was not all that bad alltogether. It had made him and his family able to pay their respects to her somehow. It was as if he knew deep down that his sister would have  appreciated this little gesture. He also knew that she had been very fond of brandy, so it was actually quite fitting with a drink to her honour. Besides Ax was in posession of the finest brandy in the entire world and a glass of that somehow loosened up the lump he felt in his throught.

About a week later, Bellatrix returned to Grunnings office only to find that there had been put a protection charm around the entire building and she could not enter. It had obviously been set there by a wizard not to let Dark Wizards able to enter. She chuckled viciously to herself. Well this was not over she thought to herself. She would simply place someone of no significance outside the building to keep an eye on the place and make sure that if he showed up she was informed.

Steven Figg however, was a smart young man and a rather innovative one. He had checked the drawings of the office building the very day of the break-in. He had discovered that there actually was another enterance they could use, and had asked Mundungus Fletcher if he could conjure up a hinderance for them in the lobby so that they had to enter the office from the next building. There were a hallway under the ground they could pass through for a while. Just up until things were safe for them to use the main entrance again. He then told all his staff to enter the building from across the street and get in through the hallway under the street for a while. The two of them had made it seem as if there were people restoring the main entrance for them and the entire staff working at that building would have to use another entrance for a while.

 

 

 


	34. Making Preparations

Ax were truly lucky to have Dig and his house elf family around the place helping him with everything. Dig was able to harvest the entire potato-field in two seconds. They did not even need to bend their backs to do it. The same applied to all of the hard labour on this farm.

This year little Bumble the house elf was going to do the honours of harvesting the grass on one of the fields in the valley. Dudley had been invited to come and watch him do it. Peter and Poppy came along as well. They all went down to the deepest part of the valley where Ax and Dig kept their livestock, and where all the grass, corn and hay was growing. They had found a nice spot to watch him do it on top of a stone ledge overlooking the field. Bumble stood on top of a boulder a little further down with his back to them and was facing the field he was going to harvest. When he was ready he lifted both his hands and started waving them in a certain direction, the field started to cut itself. After he had cut it down he flipped his hands and the grass lying on the ground flipped around in unison. Then he blew trough a hole he had made with his index finger and thumb and they all felt a warm breeze sweep across the field. Thus he had made the grass become dry and ready for puttting inside the barn. To do that he lifted both his hands as all the grass lifted from the ground and started to make itself into some sort of a cloud floating in mid air. Then he directed the grass to fly over to the barn where it laid itself neatly into the hayroom.

Dudley were totally blown away by this entire experience. How could this tiny little boy contain all of this magic? This was actually fun, Dudley thought. Bumble had only spent a little less than fifteen minutes on this and the entire field were now harvested. He won himself a huge round of applause from all of them. They then realized that both Ax and Bumbles father, Dig, also had joined them down there. Bumble was ever so happy to have such an audience that he jumped up and down, and started doing cartweels all over the place. They all laughed at him and had a great time watching Bumble rejoice in his attention.

Dudley had had such a great time himself  that he started pondering if he perhaps  should become a farmer himself when he got a bit older? But then again, probably not! He did not have a house elf family to help him do all the labour. Farming would be quite a different matter if he had to do all the work manually. Besides, he knew that his father would never have let his only son become anything that he felt was so degrading, as he knew he would have put it. His father did not seem to mind staying at a farm though. Or perhaps that was simply because he himself did not have to do any of the labour around the place, and all the delicious food they all were enjoing was quite satisfying to him Dudley knew. He also knew that his father had high hopes for him. He was after all his precious son. Vernon would rather have him become a great boxing champion or perhaps an executive leader of some company or other, preferably in his own firm Grunnings Drills, he knew. However Dudley himself did not have any idea what he wanted to do after his education had finished. He only knew that with Hestias tudoring, he now had a better chance all together at getting a good job all of his own choice. 

Vernon himself hardly left the house or the garden to even visit the rest of the farm, he kept much to himself on his leasure time. He was either reading his news papers or complaining about the abnormal sized bees that was flying all over the place. That is when he was not working in his office offcourse, or attending their meals. Vernon loved the meals at the Bee Hive. He had simply never tasted food that was this delicious in his entire life.

He had absolutely nothing to complain about when it came to his wifes cooking. Allthough, he did feel that it was as if something was different with the food around here somehow. It was as if the meat was meatier, the poatoes were of an even better taste, the gravy was thickcer and the fruit was fresher. He did wonder if there were something magical in the food, and at the beginning he was indeed sceptical. However, the smell of all of this delicious food and the taste of it, made him give up all of his sceptisism. Besides, if he were to be honest with himself, nothing bad had happeneed to them at all during the time they had stayed there, so he felt like he could probably trust that «house-elf-thing» to prepare his meals. He had asked his wife about the magical stuff in the food and she had told him that the food simply was fresher and better because they were in the countryside, and the animals Ax bred was very well taken care of indeed. She had insisted that one could actually taste that from the food. Besides, she highly praised Cookie the house elf who was preparing every meal for them. Petunia claimed that she was absolutely stunning. She told him she had got her hands on some of her delicious recepies already. Vernon was immensly grateful for that.

Petunia secretly had started to enjoy her stay just as much as Dudley did. She had actually got used to the magic surrounding them much quicker than the other two Dursleys put together. Perhaps it was because she had already been used to magic when she was a little girl. Her sister Lily had been playing with magic all the time. It was just because she could not do it herself, and the fact that she had been chased away from Lily and Sev when she was a girl, that had made her think she would never like to surround herself with magic any more for the rest of her life. She did not miss her sisters magic or anything in her everyday life back in Privet Drive.At present however, she simply had accepted the fact that they were forced to be surrounded with magic for as long as they were in hiding, therefore she settled with the idea quite easily. Besides, she truly felt safe there. She even found the place quite harmoniously and charming ever since she and Poppy had been giving the place a proper clean-out.

When Petunia had been a very young girl her family had been living in the country side as well. They did not have any animals themselves but their neighbour had a couple of chickens and a pig. She had always detested the smell of them. However, her mother had always made her go over there and ask if she could buy some eggs for them. She usually liked doing favours for her mother. Except, this one had been a challenge to her. You see, she always would have to pick the eggs herself form out from under the hens and she was immensley afraid of birds. She hated the way they suddenly and quite unpredictibly started flapping their wings and lifted from the ground. She always felt like they would attack her when they did that. They all made her scream out loud when they did this, and that was usually the cue for the rest of the hens to follow suit. This neighbour also had an angry coock who did not want to let anyone near his chicks. Especially a young girl who seemed to be easily scared. He had been chasing her around the chicken coop more than once when she was a girl. Petunia had never once told her mother about any of this. Except one time she had forced Lily to come along with her once. However, that had turned out to be quite a disaster. Lily had been trying to make the eggs fly towards her all at once, only halfway there they all dropped to the ground and broke. Petunia was so badly scolded by both her mother and the farmer for that. It was quite hurtful to her, especially since none of them knew that it had been Lilys doing, and not hers. That was the first and last time Petunia ever asked her sister to come along with her to collect the eggs. This was also the reason why Petunia was more than happy she did not have to do any of the farming chores around the place herself.

The last weeks of october gave them a lot of rain and the weather had turned windy and remarkable colder than it had been so far. Life at the Bee Hive became more secluded and indoorsy. Ax and Dig had finished harvesting all the crops and vegetables. Ax had a huge dungeon with a lot of different storage space for all sorts of food that worked almost like a refriderator.  He even had a whole room filled with only fruits. There were cases upon cases with different kind of apples and pears, plums, peaches, bananas, oranges and every delightful fruit you could ever imagine. However, to be able to preserve all of it quite properely, Cookie had done had actually put a time freezing charm on the fruit and vegetables lying inside their respectable storage-rooms. This way it stayed fresh and delightful for when she was going to use the food. It would then all be as if it had been harvested only a minute ago.

Poppy and Bumble went inside the forest behind the house one day to pick all the different kinds of berries and mushrooms that grew around the farm outside in the wilderness. That is, they did not really have to pick them physically. They simply had to point one of their fingers in a circle around them and all the berries in the close proximity started to sort themselves out. They flew straight into different barrells that they also had conjured up. The berries landed softly into each barrel. When they had finished that area they made the barrells dissapear from the woods  and was sent straight back into Ax's dungeons. It did not take them very long time at all. However if you were a muggle who would have to pick all those berries and mushrooms manually, you would have used a whole week at least. The two of them used a little under half an hour, and that included Poppys usual dawdeling. 

In addition to the berries they had found outside in the woods they had a lot of berries in the garden and the greenhouse as well. Dig had taken care of all of those. They were now safely placed in the dungeons with everything else. All of the extra honey the bees had produced had been collected during the summer and had been put on glass-jars that was neatly stacked on shelves in a cupboard down in the dungeons. Everything they  needed to harvest was now inside the house and well preserved. Still, alot of the vegetables would survive simply staying outside under layers of hay or with their roots stuck into sand. All the outdoors preparations for the winter to come were done. The residents of the Bee Hive had made themselves ready to greet the winter lying ahead of them. 

Cookie had also been making a lot of jam and juice out of many of the berries and fruits they had harvested. Ax too had started his usual brewing season. He had grapes in the greenhouse that he liked to poroduce his wine from. He also had crops from the field he liked to make into ale. And then he had his plums and apples to make his cider, brandy and sherry. He and Dig loved doing this together. They found every step of the process quite charming. 

They even asked Vernon Dursley if he would like to join them to see how they made his finest brandy and his lovely cider. Vernon actually agreed to it immediately. He did not even mind spending time together with that house elf-father. He had got the taste for Axs fine beverages and he would certainly not mind befriending this man, if it only would reward itself into acquiering a bottle or to for later on when he and his family were going back to their normal lives. However, he would have to be as subtile about that secret intenion as he possibly could. He soon learned that he really did not mind beeing part of the brewing-prosess himself either. It gave him something to do other than lying around on the couch upstairs in their parolur. He needed to socialize, his wife had told him. She had also begged him to be a little more tolerant with both the people and the house elves that lived there. She had revealed to him that she did not mind the house elves so much now that she had become used to their appearance. Actually she earnestly encouraged him to do the same. 

Ax´s bees were quite unusual in a more peculiar matter than the fact that they were over-sized and the fact that they could speak to you. They actually did not exactly hibernate during the winter like usual bees did. However they did take things quite slowly, and they did sleep alot more at that time of the year than they would be doing during the summer. They also were all about ten years old by now, wich definately would not be a ususal thing with bumble bees. They had all simply stopped aging after old aunt Tilly had given them that engorgement potion. Dig helped them out a little every fall by giving each bee hive a protection layer of heat, so that they had a nice temperature in there during the winter. In additon, Dig and Ax kept an eye on them every day when it was really cold outside when they would be the most vulnerable. Aunt Tilly also once had provided them with the tinyest little scarves, shoes and hats so that they actually could come outside for a short time on a sunny day during the winter.  Even though the cold had not yet set in properly, Dig and Ax had started preparing the bee hives for colder climates. 

Vernon Dursley had noticed that he could quite like staying at the Bee Hive for a while. In particular he was all for cutting down his own expences. He did not wish to become a wizard or a farmer living out here in the wilderness forever. No, nothing like that! However, living here with this reasonally well behaved man,  had its advantages. The food was excellent, his work was all right now he had his own office upstairs, (aside from those bloody infested birds he had to use,) and his wife and son were safe and sound and close by. He was also quite motivated by the thought of all the money he was saving up simply by staying there. He had even started to plan for what he wanted to do with his savings if they stayed there long enough. He simply could not help himself, as he daily counted his saved expences from each day passing. He had made himself some sort of a secret folder that he loved to fill in that days amount of savings. He had already put away quite a little haul of money, and he liked to rub his hands together in glee simply by the thought of it. Perhaps he and Petunia finally could even take that lovely trip to Florida the two of them had been dreaming of.

Vernon would rather die than to be seen together with Ax in the neighbourhood back home in Surrey. However, he really did not even know where on the planet he were at the moment, so he actually did not care much about how Ax looked. He knew that there were nobody in any near proximity so Vernon even groomed up his own mustache as a little competition to which of them had the biggest, him or Ax. However, when he asked Petunia if she would mind if he grew a beard to match Ax´s she had reached her limit. No way was he growing into this bushy man of the wilderness. No, she would shave him herself in his sleep if he as much as tried to start growing a beard, she said. This remark kept Vernon on his toes for a while. He knew perfectly well that he had a wife of outmost standards, and he would not dream of growing a beard if he were still at Privet Drive. What would the neighbours say to that! No, this was only some idea he had made up because of where they were at the moment, and the fact that there was not  many other distractions to be had. 


	35. The Pipe

One day when Dudley was particuraly bored. He thought he desperately needed a diversion. The rain was pouring down outside, his father was upstairs working, his mother was probably somewhere in the garden or something, at least he had not seen her all day. Ax and Hestia he knew had gone down to the barn to fix something or other and Dedalus was asleep from his nightwatch. Therefore Dudley was all alone in the livingroom. Hestia had given him a book to read that was supposed to be fantastic, except Dudley thought it was rubbish. It was called «Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump». He couldn't make anything out of it, besides it seemed to be some sort of a childrens book, so he simply tossed it away. He was looking around the room for something else to occupy himself with when Peter came flying through an open window. Dudley had become so used to him by now he had almost forgot how unusual he was. 

Dudley then wanted to have a go on the wireless radio. Perhaps he could make it work without magic. He was sure there was nothing to it. He tried to turn the knobs sitting in the front if the device, but nothing happened. He thought perhaps he had to try to squeeze it a little harder, but then out of nowhere, the ruddy thing came to life and actually bit his fingers hard. In addition it told him to take his chubby hands off or it would electricute him for sure. Dudley was so shocked that he jumped high in the air and squealed like a pig. Peter was rolling around in the air laughing so hard he almost fell to the ground. Dudley did not dare test if the wireless was lying. Except he really wanted to kick it hard. But refrained from it in fear of beeing electrocuted. Therefore he left the radio alone. Peter told him that´s what he would get for beeing nosy. 

Nevertheless, Dudley was still bored and had just then spotted Ax's old pipe sitting on a side table. He picked it up and told Peter he really would like to give it a go! It felt like ages ago since he had had his last cigarette. How different could a pipe be from a cigarette?!  Peter earnestly told him he would not do that if it was him. He knew for a fact that it was stuffed with boomslangskin and lacewingflies and all other kind of weird stuff. However, all of this simply sounded like mambojambo to Dudley. Therefore he simply shook his head, shrugged and snorted it off as if it was a joke. He wanted to show Peter who he, Dudley Dursley, really were outside in the real world. He needed Peter to know that he were as tough as anybody out there somehow.

Dudley really just wanted to give it a go a little so he picked up the pipe, lit it and took a deep breath. His face immediately turned into a deep shade of green. Then it felt as if he was about to choak, and all of a sudden he vomited all over the living room. Dudley was convinced he was going to die for sure and dropped the pipe to the floor. The entire room was spinning faster than a race car and he did not know if he should stand up to get help or lay down and grab on to the floor so he would not fall off it. He violently threw up some more, before he simply fainted right into his own pool of sick. 

Peter had hurried up and flown down to the barn to fetch Ax or somebody to help him as soon as Dudley had started to vomit. However, it was Dig that had reached Dudley first. He picked him up and magically transferred him upstairs to his bedroom. Hestia entered his room right behind Dig and helped him magically get Dudley out of his dirty sick-stained clothes and put him to bed.

Dudley was still unconscious, so he was not aware of any of this at all. The three of them and Peter stayed with him until he came around again to make sure he was ok. They also wanted to be there for him if he were to be sick again. When he came around Hestia conjured up a potion that she made him drink. It did not taste anything at all, but he felt the room stopped spinning and he did not throw up any more. Then he felt incredible tired and they let him sleep it all off. Peter and Poppy wanted to stay with him they said, but Ax told them that they now needed to inform his parents, and they most likely wanted to stay there with him themselves. Ax went to find Petunia and told her what had happened. They had not wanted her to become more hysterical than was necessary, so they had waited untill they knew Dudley was ok before alarming any of his parents. They all knew that they could fix Dudley up nicely with magic, however his parents would go ballistic if they poured any kind of magic into their son even if it was to save his life. Hestia finally fetched Vernon from his office, and tried to tell him as gently as possible what had happened. He boomed with rage against them yelling his head off about what was the point of keeping them there if they was going to murder them anyways! He had been holding a lot of frustration and anger inside for a long time obviously, and now he simply let it all out. Until he saw his son lying asleep in his bed. Then he simply shut his mouth and started to cry. Dudley was rather pale in his sleep and he looked almost as if he had passed away. Vernon then had lost all of his own ideas of raging against them with his nonsense. Everything from then on evolved around getting Dudley back to normal again. 

Petunia was the last one to enter the bedroom and as predicted she did become hysterical seeing him lying there. She even blamed Ax for leaving his pipe lying out and about. However Ax told her that it was his own fault for trying it after he had been thorougly warned not to do so by Peter. She demanded them to fix him with every means they had to make him right again. And Ax told her they had already done that. All they could do for him now was to let him sleep it all off and make sure he got a lot of rest for a couple of days or so.

Dudley ended up staying in bed for almost an entire week for this little adventure of his. Nevertheless, as time went by he knew he had learned an important lesson from it all. He never touched Ax's pipe again! In addition, if Peter or anyone else told him not to touch anything he would finally listen to them from then on. 


	36. Halloween

The last day of october arrived, that was a cue for Dudley to complain to his mother about not beeing able to celebrate Halloween properly that year. At Smeltings they always had the best celebrations of Halloween he told her. He did not tell his mother about the details, but they usually terrorized their teachers, scared each other a lot and stole candy from all the younger students. He would not be doing any of that this year, and he missed his friends again. He told her this was going to be the most boring Halloween he had ever experienced in his entire life.

However, his mother retorted to him that they did not need anything else to be scary right now, seeing as the world was pretty dark at the moment, and she would rather they did not celebrate it at all! This did not sit well with Dudley ofcourse and he sulked long enough to make his mother feel sorry for him. In the end she had a little talk to Vernon about it because she wanted her darling boy to have everything in he world if she could aquire it for him. She simply felt too sorry for him not beeing able to be with his little friends, she said. Petunia asked Vernon if he at least could get that Steven person to send him some Halloween sweets for the occation. Vernon agreed with his wife and Steven, of course did as he was asked. He sent an entire box full of Halloween sweets that arrived to the Bee Hive two whole days before the big day. Petunia hid it from Dudley so that he would not eat it all before the actual day, and then have the possibility of him start asking for more soon after.

On the evening of Halloween there had been prepared a very nice dinner for them all. Poppy had decorated the table with pumpkins in different shapes and sizes together with orange and black candles in adition to the autumn coloured leaves that she and Bumble had collected outside in the woods. She also had decorated the room with what looked like real spiders and cobwebs hanging from the celing. Petunia was not used to sit down and eat a nice dinner together with all kind of messy things from the outdoors all over the nice dining room. Therefore she flatly refused to even enter the room before the spiders and their webs had been removed. Poppy, quite dissapointed with Petunia,  reluctantly removed the spiders. However, Dudley thought they were amazing and begged his mother to keep a couple of them, and at least all of the cob-webs. Petunia never had learned during her entire life how to refuse her son anyting at all and this evening was no exception. Nevertheless, the majority of the spiders had to go for her to even dare enter the room and sit down for dinner. Instead Ax found some of his old  aunt Tillys witches hats that Poppy hung from the ceeling in replacement to the spiders, so that they could have the atmospherical spirit of Halloween at least. 

Bumble had also done some magic. He had taken a small pumpkin, carved it out to make a scary face and had magicked it so that it gave a high pitch wicked laugh every now and then. Vernon had become really spooked by it as he entered the room and yelled his head off over it. He demanded them to take that away too! But this time Dudley put his foot down! If his parents weren't up for the decortaion they might as well drop the entire thing! He firmly told his father that they were to keep all the rest of the decorations no matter what happened! After Petunia had managed to convince Vernon that it was all for their darling Dudleys sake, Vernon agreed that it could stay. After all he and Petunia did not often get to celebrate Halloween with their son, and this time Vernon would endure the little magic left in the decorations if it made Dudders happy. Then they all finally were able to sit down to eat their dinner. 

Petunia had been joining Cookie in the kitchen without her son and husband beeing any the wiser. She somehow did not want them to know that she was enjoying herself as much as she really did. She and Coockie had somehow become good friends and really worked well together, making all the delicious food for the household. That night they served a three cours delightful dinner. Petunia and Cookie had really outdone themselves this time and Cookie were congratulated and praised all during the meal. Petunia did not mind not beeing included in the praise, because she knew to herself that she had had a hand in it too. She and Cookie actually exchanged looks quite a few times during dinner to kind of make sure that they both were accepting the praise. Petunia was secretly quite flustered about it the entire evening. 

All the experiences she had every day in Cookies kitchen made her feel immensly inspierd and satisfied about herself. She was actually not used to much praise from Venon when it came to her cooking abilities. He was so used  to her exellent cooking that he did not pay much attention to it at all. Petunia had not noticed any of that until her stay there at the Bee Hive. He had been complimenting the food more often than she had ever heard him do before, and it surprised her a little that she now reacted to the absence of his compliments to her own cooking back in Privet Drive at this point. She had ofcourse sampled the recipies for all the evenings courses, and was looking forward to trying them out in her own kitchen back home some day. However, she had to admit to herself that it was really nice to work alongside Cookie at the Bee Hive with all of her magic to simplify things. In addition she did not have to do all the work all by herself around there, as she did back home, wich was rather nice she had to admit.

The two of them really complimented eachother and both of them had something to learn from the other. Even though the kitchen had no electricity whatsoever, Petunia found she really did not miss it much. As long as they had running water inside the house there were alot they could do. It did not even take any longer time to repare a meal on a wooden stove together with Cookie. Except there were different things you needed to attend to that Petunia did not even think about in her own kitchen back at Privet Drive. For example you always  needed to keep the fire going. That was the key to all the cooking and basically to the entire household. Cookie had some impressingly good routines for all of that. Well, she did indeed use her magic whenever she could. For example, she did not have to carry the wood into the kitchen, or do any of the dishwashing, or manually put the cutlery into its rightful places. She used her magic for all of it. She did not even chop the vegetalbes, or wash and peel the potatoes and carrots.  In adition, she never accidentally dropped anything on the floor. It was rather amazing Petuina thought. 

Petunia had quite rapidly become used to magic again. Ax had told her the day she said she wanted to enter the kitchen and help Cookie out, that if she truly wanted to do that she would have to get used to be surrounded with magic rather quickly. Because he was not going to ask Cookie to stop using magic for her sake! Only after a day or so Petunia had got fairly used to it, and after an entire week in the kitchen she did not even react when Cookie preformed her magic. Petunia had not told Vernon about any of it though. She thought he would not agree to it if he knew. This was to be her private little secret from her husband and child. Ax was the only one outside the house elf family who knew about it at all.

Thankfully, Vernon never entered the kitchen anyway. He simply entered the dining room if he was having a meal or if he simply was looking for a snack. The two of them therefore always made sure there was a fresh pot of coffee and some of Vernons favourite biscuits in that room so that he would not find an excuse to go looking for the kitchen at all. 

Petunia had been used to seeing magic when she was a little girl, when her sister Lily had done it. She had only repressed that part of her life because she could not do it herself, and secretly because she was a little jealous about it. Then, after she had met Vernon she simply had prided herself in beeing a perfect house wife for him. Later on, when she and Lily had had a falling out, it had made Petunia not wanting to remember anything that had to do with magic. Nevertheless, Petunia noticed a great difference in Coockies magic and Lilys childhood magic. Everything Cookie did went so fast that you really had to pay close attention to even noticing it. Petunia secretly liked it, however ofcourse she did not mention any of that to anybody but Cookie. She kept her facade as a strickt and proper muggle, who did not welcome anything out of the ordinary at all. Petunia was quite satisfied that her husband did not see her in the kithchen together with Cookie, because he would think her to be too much of Harry Potters aunt if he did. All the relations Petunia had left in the world whom cared about her was her husband and son, therefore she kept her facade up, and outwardly agreed with her husband in most matters regarding the magical world.

After dinner they all sat down in the livingroom. Completely full and drowsy from all the food. Dudley was then given all his candy and there were sweets inside that fake cauldron that he had completely forgotten that he missed. He felt like it was  almost christmas day already. He kept whooping and cheering over it for an hour and Petunia and Vernon was quite satisified that they had ordered it for him. He couldn't even finish all of his candy in the end because he was  still so full from dinner.  He even gave some of it away to Hestia, Ax and Dedalus. They had never tasted some of it, and Dedalus fell particularly in love with a rather delicious milk chockolate. Ax had not eaten any of this since he was a little boy living in the muggle world and was exctatic about it too, and even he felt like a young boy again over a cauldron full of candy. He gave Cookie his favourites and asked her if she could make him some for the future. That would not be a big problem to her, so ofcourse she could do that for him.

Dudley really had come a long way from that kid who did not get enough presents for his birthday when he turned eleven, to the young man he had turned into that day, sharing his candy with others was not something he usually did. Out here in the woods he did not have all of those material things he was used to in the muggle world. He did not even think about them nor did he really miss anything from the muggle world alot at the moment. Except for one or two candies perhaps. In earnest he had the room of requirement that provided him with whatever he needed. So to him, other than his videogames and some of his friends, there was not much to miss in the muggle world really.


	37. The Office

Vernon thought that the time he had spent at the Bee Hive really had not been that bad after all. He was lucky to have that Steven person as an inturn after all. The fact that he was as Squib living in the muggle world turned out to be quite to Vernons advantage. He knew exactly which newspapers to get him, sending them all off to the Bee Hive for him every morning. Not that Vernon was admitting to any of his comfort to anybody. No, things simply had turned out rather comfortable for him and his family, that was all. Since they had arranged for Steven to take his place at Grunnings he could pretty much work his business as normal. Except he did it fom this house instead of in his London-office. 

Well, ofcourse it had been quite difficult for him in the beginning, since he was forced to type everything on that oldfashioned typing-machine instead of using a normal computer. In his own mind he kept on blaming Harry for the things he disliked in his life at the moment. This was certainly one of the things on his list. If Harry only had been caught and put to justice, Vernons own life surely would be restored to normality. He knew that everyone around him was a big fan of Harrys, even his own son had started to see him differently it seemed. Dudley whom had been on his fathers side on the matter throughout his entire life. Vernon still had a hard time truly believing it. Perhaps Dudley was just afraid Vernon thought. However he had noticed that something had happened to Dudders since he had been attacked by those monsters only two summers ago. He seemed to have become more careful, and a little less extrovert than he had always been. Through Dudleys entire life Vernon had prided himself of beeing the father of a boisertous boy whom did not accept nonsense from anybody. He thought Dudley still was like that, however something or other definately was different with him theese days.

Oh, well. Vernon knew he would have to put up with all of this undercover nonsence until someone captured this Voldythingy or something or other happened. The worst part of his everyday life at the moment was that he had to send his mail off by those ruddy infested birds he hated so much. At first Dedalus had to take care of the owl bit alltogether, because Vernon flat down refused to even touch those horrible things. However, slowy but surely Dedalus became bored with being his servant on the matter, and told him he would have to send his own letters himself or not at all! After almost an entire weeks worth of "Strike" from Dedalus and the other two, Vernon flat out panicked and agreed to be tought how to use the bloody owls for his mail correspondance. Dedalus was very satisfied with Vernons resignation, and all of a sudden became quite the patient teacher. 

The truth was that Vernon was dead frighten of the owls, he always had been. Whenever Vernon got afraid or felt any kind of difficult feeling he always turned it into anger. He knew how to deal with anger, therefore it had become one of his favourite states of mind throughout his life.

This time around with the birds, he really needed to keep his anger or fear in check or else the birds would sense his feelings and was as likely to attack him or simply fly away. Dedalus taught him to take deep breaths before he would be dealing with the owls, that way he had time to set his mind ready for his task, and he also would have calmed down sufficiently to handle them well enough. As you can imagine this first bit was not likey to go at all well from the start. Dedalus ended up spending almost an entire afternoon working with Vernon to simply manage his own feelings. It seemed like the more he was supposed to calm himself, the more aggitated he became. They had to take several brakes before he even had managed to take three deep breaths and Dedalus was convinced Vernons true state of mind was genually calm. However his first attempt to handle one of the owls failed utterly. Simply by looking at the bird set Vernon off raging, and they had to start all over again. Vernon was then convinced he was never going to master this idiotic task and really wanted to give it up all together. However, Dedalus was persistent and forceful in a rather convincing way that made Vernon understand that there were no way around this. Vernon recognized the fact that this Dedalus person was not to be trifled with on the matter. He really did miss his office computer in earnest that afternoon! Things was all that much easier with a computer! Oh well, at least he did have that old typewriter. It made sure he did not have to write everything by hand with a quill and ink after all, like that Hestia woman had suggested! After quite some hours passing Vernon finally managed to become sufficiently friends with one of the owls to persuade it to deliver a letter for him. Dedalus was so overly pleased with this that he treated Vernon to a bottle of something rather odd but quite tasteful called a «Butter Beer». 

Vernons letters was sent to Stevens home address he knew. Steven then would have to scan them into his computer, and send them to the office to make it look as if Vernon had sent him an email. Vernon wanted to wait for Steven to return to his home before he would send his owls. Because annoyingly, Vernon felt, an owl obviously did not have a built in sense of appropriate time to deliver their message. Vernon was petrified by the mere thought of that ruddy bird showing up at his office with a letter in its beak written by him and adressed to Steven. Therefore he waited until late in the afternoons when he could be almost certain that Steven would be at home.

Only now and then the idea popped into Vernons head that Steven might be out in public when the owls found him. What a disgrace, he thought! He therefore wrote Steven a letter instructing him on being at home after eight o´clock in the evenings to be able to receive his owls. Vernon felt this was a rather generous gesture on his part. However, this instruction did not sit too well with the recipiant. Steven replied to him, quite gently, that he was going to be out and about every now and then whenever he wanted to. He told him that it did not matter really when he recieved the owls, because he usually was spending time with his magical friends on his leisure time anyway. However, he did inform him that every now and then he could be out in a pub with one or two from the office, so if he truly wanted to be certain he was alone when he recieved Vernons leter the safest time would be around midnight. 

This reply turned into a nightmare to Vernon, not beeing able to control Steven like he wished regarding the owls! Vernon complained loudly to Hestia and Dedalus about this and refused to go out in the middle of the night to deal with those ruddy infested birds!  Except this was neither Hestia, Dedalus nor Axs problem so he would have to deal with this how he saw fit himself. They told him that it probably would not be a problem most days, and that he should not be too bothered with it, and suggested that he should keep sending the owls around eight PM. All three of them seemed to gang up on him on the matter and told him he should be thankful Steven even bothered to help him out in the first place. Vernon realized that he would not be able to change anything about this and were forced to succumb to the fact that Steven might be out and about every now and then when he recieved one of his letters. 

Instead Vernon wrote another letter to Steven, begging him please to inform him if he ever had any plans not to be at home around eight in the afternoon. Vernon simply hoped he would be descreet about recieving the letters the other times he choose to be out and about.

Vernon had given Steven close instructions on how to place the orders for the diferent drills at the different companies. He told him whatever he should say in meetings, and who he was to contact for more assignements.  In adition, Vernon had been very helpful in telling him wich of his useless employees was wich, and who he should butter up to from the main office and whom he should not bother with at all. He had wanted this Steven person to be his own eyes and ears when he could not be there himself. In Vernons entire, though limited imagination, everything about Steven was exactly like his own younger self; well-fed, groomed, ambitious and demanding! Vernon felt that Steven, after all, was an allright fellow from the letters he recieved from him, even though the two of them had never spoken a single word to eachother, nor had Vernon in earnest inspected himself what he looked like, to his great displeasure! 

Even though their communication mostly was about business Vernon had managed to percieve a vague impression of Steven and who he was as a person. Allthough Steven had not rapproted anything gossiplike information on Vernons employees yet, wich was a little annoying to Vernon. However, he had been quite polite, though short in his response to the letter where Vernon had thrashed his co-workers. Vernon had wanted to test him out on his response. If he was downright insolent towards himself in his retort he would not trust him that much. He had to admit he had expected him to be a little more supportive regarding the uselessness consisting of his office staff. However, he excused him on the matter since he had only just become aquainted with them. Come time he would witness all of this for himself Vernon thought. 

Vernon also was very curious about how Steven handled his connections outside the office. Steven however, did not rapport much on how this and that person was doing privately. He kept his letters strictly businesslike. Vernon felt a little frusterated about this but kept telling himself that he would have to endure the not knowing bit for as long as it was unsafe for him and his family to be out in the open. Better this Steven person was there than him. Steven did give him short notices however if someone had taken ill for a longer periode of time or if someone had to attend a funeral or such trivial things like that. He knew he would know about theese things sooner or later anyway, but he liked to keep up with what happened around the office more than he had ever realized before. 

The worst of it was that Vernon really would like for Steven to be on his team when it came to his staff at the office. He secretly had a wish for Steven to be as demanding and hard with his employees as he himself prided himself in beeing. Especially that batty old hag of a secretary he had been dragging along for all theese years. She was as wrothless as anyone, he knew. Vernon had made sure Steven knew all about this and he also really wanted to give him some points on how to make her cry. That was one of the sweetest things in Vernons life. Pushing worthless people over the edge and into a dark abyss. However he did not exactly want to put anything like that in writing. It could reflect poorly on him if this Steven person turned out to be disloyal towards him and sold him out to his superiors in the main office or something like that. Therefore he held his tounge. Still, by keeping a rather sarcastic tone in his letters about her he hoped Steven would figure it out on his own, and he himself could pass it off as poor sense of humor to the main office if ever he got in trouble for it later on.

When he first had started working from the Bee Hive, Vernon had had to write long letters to his working contacts so that they would not loose their interest for Grunnings drills when he finally returned back to his business again, explaining that he had taken ill, and that he had an inturn replacing him at Grunnings office. He really had to toady with his big buyers, so that he did not loose them. He never liked to do that, but his postition at Grunnings relied on it so there he was. 

He remembered all too well that time the Masons was coming over for dinner when Harry had smashed that pudding on the top of Mrs Masons head. How furious he had been with Harry, he could easily have strangled him for sure. All the flatterring he had to do to mr Mason afterwards. Thankfully it had all payed off in the end, he had got his order of drilles and the main office had thanked him for making a great deal. Allthough he had not dared telling his boss what really had happened. It had taken him alot longer time to aquire the order than they all had expected, however he had managed it in the end. He had even managed to persuade mr Mason to not mention it to anyone at work. 

This autumn Vernon had been looking forward to go to New York in persue of the biggest order of drills he would be able to get his hands on throughout his entire career. They had some great new technology over there that he and the main office had wanted to explore. Therefore it was a great pity he would have to be hiding from those silly wizarding people over here instead. Especialy because he secretly had planned for himself and Petunia to take a little reaserch trip over there to check it out this fall. However now it all came to nothing. Instead he hoped the main office would not tell Steven about it and send him over in his stead. He might be able to go there himself when they came out of hiding again. So for now he had to rely on this Steven person to manage everything at Grunnings, up until something good happened with this ruddy magical world and he could return to his normal life again. Vernon felt a twinge of jealousy by it, what if they really sent Steven after all! Because this would have been an incredible nice treat for him and his wife for beeing such hard working tax-paying citizens. Vernon did not know for certain that this Steven person even paid his taxes at all. This magical community had their own ways of dodging the law it seemed.

Anyway, so far this Steven person seemed to manage quite well. Vernon had tested him in a meeting with the Belfast office already. Vernon had been quite nervous about how it would all turn out. Except it seemed as if he had managed it exceedingly well. That was when Vernon discovered that he really was rather jealous with Steven regarding everything else. Vernon couldn´t quite understand how Steven did manage everything so well at Grunnings, because all the other people at the office was so utterly worthless, and he was convinced none of them would ever be helping him out in any way, because they never lifted a finger to do so for him. He was sure the only help Steven had recieved was from him. Vernon had even put in little mistakes for Steven to fall into. Simply to make himself stand out in a better light than Steven would ever be. Vernon could not let Steven just take over his position and make everything at work look easy-peasy. He actually had great fun sitting in his attick office at the Bee Hive conjuring up little misstakes for Steven to fall into. He would have to be quite subtle about it too, since he needed him there afte all, therefore he needed to be really cautious with every detail.

The truth was that all the people in Vernon Dursleys office was working as hard as they possibly could to help Steven out. They were so pleased to have him there instead of mr Dursley that they did everything in their power to make him a success. The only thing they asked of him in return was that he did not inform mr Dursley about the assistance he recieved from them. In secret they had all agreed amongst themselves that they did not want mr Dursley to return to the office any sooner than was necessary. Also, whenever mr Dursley had asked them for help before they had all pretended not to understand whatever he had meant. They all truly disliked him that much. Everyone quite enjoyed their workdays at the moment without mr Dursley hanging around. Besides, Steven was such a fresh breath of air to all of them. He had quite the opposite temper from mr Dursley. Therefore they all collaborated with Steven as they never would have dreamed of doing with mr Dursley. Every mail he was sending to aquire another order of drills was carefully written and planned as a team within the entire office. They were all that relieved to have Steven there.

How he could possibly have managed to aquire the position from mr Dursley however, nobody still truly could comprehend. He had no real experience at all, and his appearance was so contradicting to everything mr Dursley wanted people to look like that everybody was quite baffled about it. At the beginning of his stay at Grunnings the people in the office kept whispering amongst themselves about how odd they found it all. They were absolutely convinced that mr Dursley could not have been interviewing him in person. How many qualified people had been turned down during the years by mr Dursley simply because of their appearances. He was overly maticulate about how people should look like and how he felt they should behave. He even asked his interviewing object their poliltical opininon before hiring people into his staff! 

Anyway, Steven had learned  the ropes around Grunnings soon enough, and they all did what they could to help him if he had any sort of problems. Grunnings office flourished very well indeed without mr Vernon Dursley. Steven Figg was even the one whom introduced them to casual friday and an after work pint. 

The poor lady that was mr Dursleys secretary had been on the brink of turning in her resignation the very day that he and his family had to go in hiding. She had had it with his shouting and abuse, she would rather retire long before her time was due, rather than enduring mr Dursleys horrible temper any longer. However, now that he was elsewhere there was no need for all of that just yet. As long as he was absent from the office and Steven was in charge she had decided to stay. She found mr Dursleys replacement more than satisfactory. It was like he was mr Dursleys contradiction both in looks and mood. Steven was not what she would call pretty. However, he was ever so charming and pollite towards her that she could not help herself feeling pleased about her situation. She spent many hours alone in his company every day, and he treated her with politeness and respect like nobody but her husband had treated her with before they got married. Stevens charm and kindness made her almost fall in love with him. She knew that he was nothing she would ever be with anyway. Him being so young and she herself had more than surpassed her mid-life. However she found she rather enjoyed her everyday life better and better because of him. Her thoughts of handing in her resignation faded away further and further with each day that passed in his presence. 

As the days turned into months however, she fooled herself into believing that he must somehow be aware of their little flirtation too. Not that she would ever act on any of it. Besides, the entire thing was so sublte that nobody in their office did ever know. Only the head of Human Rescourses kept asking her if something had happened to her, because she looked so much better than she had done before, it was almost like she was glowing and she also had become rather giggly as a contrast to what she had ever been before. She lied and told her that her husband was ever so nice to her nowadays and so forth. However, she worked overtime as often as she could, whenever Steven was there by her side. She did everything for Steven with pleasure and utter joy, that she had hated doing for mr Dursley. He had started off by asking them all to simply call him Steven, not mr Figg, and from that point everything had been quite cheerful at Grunnings.

Vernon Dursley was ofcorse totally ignorant of anything pleasent going on in his office. From his point of view his own working days at the Bee Hive became quite short in comparison to what he usually had been accustomed to. He found he rather enjoyed that, and he truly felt like he was in dire need, and most deserving, of such a luxury. He knew about other people working only half a day and still getting payed full time, why should not he be able to do so too. His good advantage was that he did not have to think about this Steven persons salary at all. He felt rather satisfied with himself on this matter. Making that stupid Ministry of Magic pay for him to stay at Grunnings while he spent much of his working hours at leisure. He laughed at them for their foolishness, even though he knew that  he totally relied upon it. 


	38. The Announcement

The Weasly twins truly were well informed about what went on in the wizarding world, and they seemed to have some deep insight in other various matters as well. Therefore it was actually quite interesting to listen to them on the wireless. They told the magical community about different measures they ought take to make sure everyone they cared about was kept safe. They tought them different protection charms and how to perform them. One of the charms they shared over the radio was something called the «Muffilato charm». This made people able to talk to each other without anybody unwelcome listening in on their conversation. They encouraged everybody to put it around their dwellings so that no Dark wizards could detect any kind of secret that might be conveyed. Dedalus chuckled to himself as he said that he thought this was a marvellous idea, and immediately went ahead and performed the Muffilato charm all around the entire Bee Hive estate. When he returned to the livingroom only two minutes later he rubbed his hands together, grinned at them all and told them now they really could not be detected by anyone even if they had wanted to. 

The newsreaders also seemed to have the nerves to make fun of that You Know Who-Person sometimes. That was beyond anything Dudley would even dare think of doing towards anybody he himself feared. The two of them obviously had started a joke shop somewhere in London where they had a poster hanging in one of their windows with the text «U-no-POO» as a pun to You Know Who’s name. Dudley from then on actually started to like the Weasly twins a little, because they were simply cool. It also helped that Dedalus and Hestia praised them to the skies. Dedalus knew them personally as he had visited the Burrow quite a few times during his life. In addition, Peter and Poppy too liked them alot. Therefore Dudley were rather influenced by them as well. 

Dudley had not forgotten about the ton tongue toffee they had given him all those years ago though. However, as Peter repetedly told him, that was all in the past, and he should not dwell on things from the past. Besides, in his heart Dudley really could not blame them if they all just hated him and his family for treating Harry badly all during his life. Harry must have told them all about how he had been treated at Privet Drive, he thought. Dudley were deeply ashamed of his previous conduct towards his cousin, however not many people knew how he truly felt about it now. Dudley thought that even Harry himself would realize this. He were not sure Harry had got the gist on his apology that summer, before their parting. Besides, even if he had understood it, Dudley was not sure that he would have told his friends about it. Even though both Peter, Poppy and Ax told him to never mind what Harrys friends thought about him, Dudley still were a little ashamed about all of it.

Nevertheless, Dedalus kept on telling Dudley all about the Weasly twins, and how cool they actually were considered to be all over the magical world. Dedalus was also the one to tell them all that it actually were the two of them running the Wireless shows those days, because they all had to use alias names in case they were found out by dark wizards and hunted down somehow. They operated together with a friend that Dedalus did not know the true name of, however they all understood that the three of them must be close friends the way they talked to eachother. It was also quite clear that they all knew Harry pretty well. They talked about him as the celeberity he obviously were in the magcial community, and Dudley kind of became a little star struck with it all actually!

Because of the newsreaders utter coolness Dudley kept listening intently to what they all had to say. Petunia on the other hand, had started out pretending not to care about those news at all, however after a while she simply dropped all pretence and joined them around the wireless as hungry for any news as the rest of them. After all, she was in general really interested in any kind of gossip, and cooped up out there in the wilderness she had to make do with whatever she could get her hands on of that score. Besides, she was also secretly a little curious about what happened in the magical society and with her nephew Harry. In addition to this, she was Harry Potters aunt!

Another, rather shocking announcement the Wireless served to them that evening, was actually the death of Marjorie Dursley. They announced to the entire magical community that she had been a relation to Harry Potters muggle family the Dursleys. They told them all that she had been executed by Death Eaters in a most horrendous way. Ofcourse the inhabitants of the Bee Hive already knew that she had died, also that her funeral had taken place a couple of weeks ago even. 

However, Dedalus and the others had not conveyed to the Dursleys that she had been brutally tortured before she had been murdered in a most horrifying way. Vernon was still very upset about it all and started to yell at them all demanding them to know why they had not told him about all of this before!Dedalus however, calmly told him the truth, that he did not want to upset him any more than was necessary on the matter! Besides, it would not make her come back to life, simply because he knew that his sister had most cruelly been tortured to death.

Vernon started to cry again at the announcement of it. He knew they all were right about that and if he were to be quite honest to himself he really did not want to know about the details of her death himself, seeing as he felt so guilty about it all. Instead he started yelling at the radio for informing them all about her death this long after it actually had happened. Vernon added in his bitter grief for his sister, that if Harry was such a brave hero why hadn't he stopped Marjorie from beeing murdered??! He raged and stormed on them all asking the room in general why this had happened in the first place!? When no one could give him an answer to this, he suddenly felt all fed up with their company.  Therefore he simply left the room and went upstairs to his parlour to grieve his sister some more in solitude.

This time Petunia did not go after him. She figured that he needed to be on his own a little. Besides, she disagreed deeply with him and had a hard time keeping it to herself any longer. She had been biting her tongue during her husbands entire speach. All of a sudden, and quite out of caracter, Petunia rose from her seat as she started to pace up and down the room talking to the room at large as if Vernon were still there. She asked everyone and no one if Vernon really thought that Harry would ever care about Marge? The way she had always treated him!  Petunia told the room that ofcourse she was sorry that Marge had been tortured to death and naturally she had not wanted anything bad to happen to her in the first place! However, she could not comprehend that Vernon still were unable to see that aunt Marge always had been downright impertinent with Harry all the times she had stayed with them at Privet Drive! She said that Vernon were full aware of all that! Petunia also revealed to them that she never had said anything to him before because Marge had been his own dear sister. Petunia had observed the way Marge always had behaved towards their nephew. She added that Marge never had any reason to behave poorly towards Harry, he had never done anything to her. Petunia also revealed that she herself regretted not beeing able to stand up for her nephew earlier on the matter. How on earth could Vernon expect Harry to ever have come to that womans rescue she could not comprehend!  Her entire solitariy speach was like watching the air leaving a rather large balloon, and it was as if the balloon was flying all over the room.

After Petunia had finished her speach she quite deflated, sat herself down on a chair a little away from the others with her head turned to face the windows. She did not want to look at them all, feeling a little ashamed of herself with her nonsensical outburst. Nevertheless, she could not help but  somehow feeling relived about it all. She had been in dire need to let it all out, even though the true recipiant was not present in the room. Petunia felt that it did not matter really. She had aired her own true feelings and that was what mattered. Her poor husband was so filled with grief towards his own sister that he did not see anything clearly at the moment. She did not blame him at all. Allthough, when she had lost her own sister she had been forced to keep her countenance towards him because she had after all told him that she did not care about her at all. She knew that was a lie in her heart. She had dearly loved Lily and she missed her alot more than she had wanted to admit, even to herself.

Everybody was still sitting in the livingroom and they all felt rather stunned at Petunias reaction. They reconed that she had been carrying theese feelings for quite some time and it was all about time she released them. Even though it was a pity that she still had not told her husband about any of it. 

Hestia was rather shocked at how Petunia had managed to keep all of those feelings to herself throughout all those years. Still, she earned quite a few silent points from both Ax, Hestia and Diggle for her outburst. None of them said anything though, they simply exchained looks between them to know what the others felt on the matter.

Dudley on the other hand, went over to her, found another chair wich he pulled up next to hers and sat down to pat her gently on her hand. He too was rather shocked with her outburst. Not so much at the content of the message. They both knew she was right about all of that. It was more the fact that she somehow and actually defended Harry against his aunt Marge. He had never seen her do anything like that his entire life. Dudley were not used to his parents arguing in any kind of form. He had always looked upon them as the perfect married couple. Now he could tell that his mother had been carrying some feelings to herself about aunt Marge and possibly Harry, all of theese years. Perhaps it was a good thing for her to let it all out he thought. 

Petunia simply gave Dudley a sigh at his touch of her hand, shook her head and turned away. She knew she had all of their support on the matter, however the only thing she could feel at the moment was guilt for trashing her housband behind his back. She knew in her heart that she should check on him upstairs, he did not deserve to have the entire household looking down on him and his sister. However, she just did not want to talk to him at the moment. Nor did she want to talk any more of the subject of Harry or Marjorie Dursley.

Dudley sat in his chair reflecting on the matter for quite a while before deciding he truly did side with his mother. He had not had much love for his aunt Marge, she had always just been there. Even though she had been giving him excellent presents all the time, other than that he had never even liked her all that much. She had always been way too chatty about her stupid dogs, and his mother was right, she had always liked to pick on Harry for no reason at all. If he were to be quite honest with himself he had never complained about Marge abusing Harry. He had used to love it when people somehow had sided with him for anything he had done. Except all of that had been okay when he had been only a child. Now he had seen things from the other side during his Dementor Attack, and that had changed his minds completely about everything.  

Having thought all of theese things, Dudley did not wish for his only aunt to have suffered as she truly seemed to have done. Neither did he blame Dedalus for not telling them all about the details around her death as his father did. He had much rather not know anything about what had happened to her at all. He had hoped and imagined that it had been over quickly and totally without pain, as if it was an accident or something. Now it seemed as if it was quite the opposite thing that had happened to her, and he truly felt sorry for her. Even though he had just admitted to himself that he did not like her much, she still was family and he did not want anybody in his family to suffer any horrible things like that. That included even his cousin Harry!

Another reaction the announcement about his aunt Marge gave was to really make Dudley realize that Harry indeed was a famous person in the wizarding world. Someone whom Harry had been forced to call «Aunt» his entire life had been murdered, and they announced it on the radio for the entire magical community. That was kind of special he thought. He almost felt like a celebrety himself. However, it did not make him feel any good about himself at all. He knew his relationship with Harry had not been good during the years. He would not blame the entire magical community if they hated him and his family for treating Harry poorly throughout his life. Dudley had realized by now how Harry really must feel towards them all. Dudley was certainly not proud of it.  If he could have the opportunity to make some sort of amends towards Harry he certainly would. He also wondered if Harry had been listening to that programme. If he had he might even be talking down on him and his family at that very moment. He felt that it was a strange thought to have. He did not even understand why he thought about that? He had never been occupied with Harrys thoughts before, why would he start now? Only he knew the answer to that. He wanted Harry to forgive him for what he had done to him in the past.


	39. An Escape from Azkaban

One afternoon in the middle of november the Wireless announced that Muncharr Flint, whom had been captured by an unknown hero on the Scottich moores in the middle of September, had managed to escape from Azkaban prison somehow. Undoubtedly with help from his little friends from the Dark Side. He was now out and about, possibly lethally dangerous seeking revenge for his inprisonment. The newsreader encouraged everybody in the magical community to stay well away from him, they announced that he was after all partly troll, and that in itself made him highly dangerous. They could not say for sure if he actually was a death eater, however he had a history of menace, so people in general should be alert and avoiding him if they could.

Everybody at the Bee Hive were all pleased to hear that Hestia was an announced hero. Even though they were the only ones to know that she was the one who actually had captured him. Hestia on the other hand worried about him managing to escape so easily and so soon. 

Hestia knew that he had recognized her when she fought him, he had yelled at her during the fight, and some of the things he had said were similar things to what he had said to her back in the days at Hogwarts when he had bullied her. She was not afraid for her own life, it was more her friends and family living scattered around the country she worried about. Some of her friendswere highly skilled in defense against the dark arts she knew, and she should probably not worry too much about them. However, she feared for her sister whom was younger than her and not as tough as tough as she herself was.She decided to send her sister a patronous telling her to put some extra protection to her and her familys home in addition to keep her family safe and away from Flint, Goyle or any other Dark Wizards if they should turn up in her neighbourhood. She was almpst convinced that Flint would persue her family, or what was left of it anyway. She perfectly knew what he was capable of doing to a person. He generally loved torturing people, and she certainly did not want the rest of her living family to have to endure such a thing.

Hestia were fully aware that everyone at the Bee Hive was fairly well protected and hidden from harm. It was everyone else she was concerned for. She also worried about the children at Smeltings and some of the teachers working there. The Death Eaters had probably figured out that she had been inside the school, and perhaps they thought that Dudley really was one of the students attending. What if they figured that they would pay him and his friends a little visit inside the school!? Hestia decided then and there that she would have to return to Smeltings and perform a protection charm on the entire school so that none of the Death Eaters could enter and harm any of them. She paced back and forth the livingroom floor so briskly she almost upturned a side table. 

Dedalus tried to reason with her the best he could to not do anything irrational because of this. If she returned to Smeltings now she would definately get caught by them, he said. He waere convinced thst she would play straight into the Death Eaters hands if she returned. Because they would simply expect her to return to protect the school, ecpecially if the Magical Community were to announce Flints escape from azkaban on the wireless. Hestia was determined however. She did not care anything about herself, she needed to protect the people at Smeltings, or else they would have another murder like the one they had on Marjorie Dursley and she pointback refused to sit and wait for that to happen, she said. All the Dursleys´s hearts swelled at this announcement towards her. Even Vernons! Her willingness to protect them was actually admiring he found himself feeling. The feeling was almost annoyingly though. He liked to dislike Hestia, immensly! He would rather not stop disliking her if he could help it.

Dedalus pointback told her to simply relax. Hadn't Hestia told them all that Flint was not exactly intelligent? Neither him nor Travis Goyle had the brains to figure out much between them. Besides those Rotweilers she left at Smeltings sure sounded like some angry beasts if threatened. Therefore he figured that they would probably protect the entire Smeltings School from the Death Eaters if they tried to enter for sure. However, Hestia was not convinced by his words at all. She alone knew what Flint and Goyle was capable of doing, and if they wanted to kill innocent people they certainly would. She realized that Flint probably were full of rage towards her for sending him to Azkaban by then. Hestia was so determined to get going that she was about to set out for Smeltings immediately without a plan or anything. 

Arabrax had patiently been listening to every word she had said, and he also recognized her determination, something he really admired her for. Making up his mind he rose from his chair, reached up on top of his head and plucked out a hair of his head and handed it to her. He told her that if she was going anywhere she needed to disguise herself a little better than she had done the last time. Then he told her thst the only human present they all knew for sure that the Death Eaters never had set their eyes upon before, was himself. He told her to take some polyjuicepotion and he could lend her some of his old clothes for her to wear. Hestia looked at him gratefully and thanked him from the bottom of her heart. The gesture was quite touching to them all, and both Dedalus, Hestia and Dudley rose from their chairs an patted his shoulders. They all knew what kind of potenial dangers Hestia was about to face, and they all looked upon her as if the last day of her life on earth had come and she was going to face the gallows or something. That was when Dig the house elf stepped up and offered to help her out. He wanted to come along and protect her if she needed it. He could be invisilbe at will and he could stay close to her. That was another fine gesture that evening that was immensly appreciated. 

The two of them decided they would hurry up and leave as soon as possible. Hestia did not want any delay, in case somebody accidentally leaked the information about Flint beeing on the loose again, to the Death Eaters. It was about six o´clock in the evening on a regular thursday, and both teachers and students at Smeltings would have finished their dinner before the two of them arrived on premises. Hestia, figured she had to pretend she was a hobo on lost tracks or something so that the Death Eaters would not suspect anything odd about her. She had learned her lesson from the last visit that she had been standing out in the crowd with the fancy clothings of Petunias. 

She realized that she probably would stand out again as Ax the hobo, however the Death Eaters in general did not want to waste time on people living on the street she knew. Hobos were looked upon as worthless filth that they never even liked to pay any attention to at all. Therefore she figured that she might have a chance of beeing sufficiently undercover this time. Besides she had Dig with her. Not that she knew anything about his abilities to fight at all. However he had voulenteered and that in itself was a great comfort to Hestia now she did not have to face it all alone.

They told the Dursleys that she was about to change her appearance into Ax and that they would be seeing two of him. Or they could choose to go upstairs if they did not want to witness this kind of magic. Vernon ofcourse rose from his chair immediately and left the room. Petunia also got up and was about to follow her husband. However she stopped infront of Hestia and told her in earnest to be careful and wished her good luck. Then she left the room and went upstairs as well. Dudley had no inclination to leave at all, he was actually incredible excited to be witnessing this, he said. Hestia then told him that he had to understand that that kind of magic was not dangerous and that she was still herself on the inside. The potion would only last for an hour therefore she would have to be quick about it after she had transformed. 

Meanwhile Ax had found some old rags he had discarded and an old knitted woollen hat that had been worn out a long time ago for her to wear. She took the potion at once and changed into his clothes. Then she went into the kitchen to fetch some charcoal and painted her face and hands a little dirty. She also conjured up some batted old shoes with one of the soles half way off, to make her appearance as authentic as possible. Dudley laughed out loud when she returned to the livingroom. He could not believe his eyes seeing two of Ax infront of him. It was a little creepy he thought, however he knew that it was Hestia in there somehow, and when she spoke he could hear that it was her. Therefore he tipped her that she should pretend not to be able to speak or something.

Hestia and Dig were ready to leave and the two of them stepped outside the garden fence and into the uncertain and open world. Hestia had decided to apparate directly into the mens lavatory at the same train station that she had been visiting the last time. 

When she and Dig had arrived, she told him to become invisible but to please stick close to her. He did not say anything, but took her hand as an assurance and dissapeared. She could still feel his hand in hers, and she knew he was still there. She stepped out of the cubicle and out into the station. Right outside there was an old broken-down shopping-cart, and an idea burst into her head at once. She whispered to Dig to get inside it and she filled it with empty bottles from out of nowhere. Then she hunched her back like a very old man. Looking at herself in the reflection of a window she knew Ax himself never would have walked like this and felt she really did look like a hobo. She then started walking slowly and with a lilttle limp the short way from the trainstation towards Smelting school. 

She had been absolutely right in thinking that there were a band of Death Eaters stationed right outside the school. She was also right about them not noticing her and her shopping-cart passing by. Even though she was on the same side of the street as them and she took her time passing all of them. She did not dare to look at them at all. However, she overheard them planning on bursting into the school that very same evening. Except one of them said that they would have to wait for Flint arrived himself, he had wanted to be a part of the havoc they were about to make, the man announced. So then Flint had not arrived yet Hestia thought. Thank heavens! She passed them and turned a corner of the school. She stopped walking and whispered to Dig if he would like to help her with a rather intricate wizard-repelling-spell. It was usually not wizards that had to be repelled, but the muggles from wizarding dwellings, so that they did not stumble upon them. Dig turned out to be of great help and Hestia was ever so grateful that he was there with her. If he had not things would have taken her a whole lot longer. Besides she felt a lot more safe and relaxed with him around too. She had never needed any of help from house elves before in her entire life. However, this night made her realize that they could come in handy in more than the simple chores they did around a house or garden. 

Dig and Hestia was almost finished giving Smeltings school all kind of protecting charms they could think of when she suddenly heard a popping sound behind her. She could not help herself but gasped out loud. It was Flint! He had apparated behind the school so that he would not be detected by muggles. That was the exact reason why Hestia had chosen that position too. Now he was standing a little more than fifty feet away from her looking straight at them. He yelled «Hey! What the hell are you doing?!» Fortunately Hestia moved fast and managed to cast a bodylock charm on him before he even had got his wand out. While Dig hurried up and finished the protecting-spell for the School. Flint fell straight to the ground with a loud thud and was unable to move an inch or say another word. This time Hestia figured that she would simply leave him there. Knowing full well that his friends would find him eventually. She did not want to waste her time sending him back to Azkaban knowing that he would simply escape again if she did so.

They had finished their work protecting the school. Now they needed to get away from there fast before his friends appeared. Neither Hestia nor Dig said a word between them. They simply looked at eachother as if they both understood that this was a really close shave. Then Dig took her hand again and they dissapparated right back into the Bee Hive kitchen. 

Without even been gone for a full hour Hestia and Dig returned to the livingroom of the Bee Hive looking as Ax the Hobo. That was really weird Dudley thought. Sitting next to the real Ax, and then a dirty version of Ax was entering the room. He heard it was Hestia when he spoke though. Hestia were panting a little due to the adrenaline that was pumping through her veines. Both she and Dig were smiling though so they knew it had been a sucess. Hestia kept repeating that she was really pleased to have Dig there with her, and he had been a real asset to her. She knew that without him she would not have been able to finish her charms that quickly and she would probably have to abandon the project half finished. She also told them that they had arrived just in time, and that Flint actually showed up and caught them in the act!

Dudley was so proud of her when she told them she had hexed him that he could not help jumping out of his chair whooping. He punched the air and cheered. Hestia recognized his happiness as him beeing thankful for protecting his best friends.

However only when Dudley was lying in his bed trying to sleep that night did it truly dawn on him what Hestia actually had done for him and his friends that evening. He decided he wanted to do something for her in return, and the next day he asked Poppy if her mother please could bake a chocolate cake to her the next day. He liked to be treated in sweets himself, and could not think of a better way to thank her.


	40. Ping Pong

The autumn washed over them with wind, rain and the occasional sleet. The days at the Bee Hive had become indoorsy and confined. This gave them all plenty of time to sit around the livingroom and speculate about all kinds of different things. Nobody knew anything about where Harry and his friends were at the moment.  It actually made Dudley a little worried, because nobody seemed to know the whereabouts of him and his friends at all. 

Therefore, one evening Dudley asked Dedalus if he thought Harry had been caught by this you-know-who-person or something. However Dedalus reassured him that if Harry had been caught, they surely would have heard all about it. The celebration on the other side would not be going amiss in any way if that happened, he thought. They would probably put him out to display for everyone to see. Dedalus told him that the dark side liked to play with, and humiliate their victims in the worst kind of manner, and most likely they wouldtorture Harry really bad until he died if they ever got a hold on him and his friends. Preferably they would do so in full public, so that the entire magical community would know who was truly in charge from then on.

This information did not sit well with Dudley at all, especially when he thought of how badly he himself had been treating Harry during his life. He had heard that this Voldy-wizard-person´s only reason to kill Harry was that he had not managed to do so when he was a baby in his cot back in the days. Dudley could not quite wrap his head around any of this. Why this man was all that eager to murder his cousin. There must be something that Dudley did not know about. Perhaps it had to do with money or power or something, he knew that people could go ballistic when money was involved. None of this was normal though, he thought. The only conclution Dudley made of it was that this man must be a raving lunatic. 

Dedalus had recieved word from his friend Mundungus Fletcher that he had met with Harry and his friends back in august, in that house Harry had inherited. Mundungus had told thim of that ruddy house elf who lived in no 12 Grimmaulds Place, that had chased him all over London, and finally managed to kidnap him and had brought him back to the old Headquarters. Mundungus had told Dedalus that he had been interrogated there by Harry and his friends about some information on a stupid locket. It seemed to be of some sort of high value to them and they all went rather pale when he told them he had sold it to some ministry hag with an attitude. He did not know why that stupid locket had any interest to Harry at all. It was only a broken old thing that did not even open. He had thought about it quite a lot since then, perhaps this locket had been really valuable and that they knew about someone or other who would give them a better price than the one he had got. This was what Mundungus had told him, neverthelss Dedalus did not believe any of Mundungus´s theory. Allthough why ever would an old broken locket  interest Harry Potter and his friends this much? 

Vernon was always very helpful when theese sort of discussions came up. His suggestion was that the red headed fellow with too many kids and obviously no money finally had gone out of bread and butter, now he had totally cracked and begged Harry to help him get his hands on some money. Or perhaps Harry was saving up for that stupid flying motorbike he used to dream about when he was a kid. Vernon always laughed hard at his own jokes patting himself on the belly and feeling extremely smug about himself. Vernons concerns for Harry had not changed an inch since they had parted.

Dedalus´s eyes flared at Vernon when he heard theese words, and told him that Harrys godfather Sirius Black had actually designed a flying motorbike for himself years and years ago. Harry had been on this flying motorbike a couple of times already, and the first time that had happened was when he had been brought to the Dursleys as a one year old child. If Harry had dreamt about it when he was a kid it was probably because he actually remembered that it had happened. Dedalus then pointed out to him that people actually do remember things that have happened to them in their dreams. Just because he did not believe in it, did not mean that it was not true. Then he told Vernon to stop beeing sarcastically towards Harry and things he did not know anything about. He added that if Vernon so much as gave another hint of abuse about his good friend Arthur Weasly he would turn him into a pincushion himself! 

This made Vernon shut up completely about everything he had been feeling so smug about just then. Hestia usually were the one whom Vernon rowed with around there, not Dedalus. He tended to keep himself in the background looking as if he enjoyed himself alot with any fight involving Vernon. However, this time it was Dedalus whom had put his foot down on him. Vernon somehow had a little more respect for him than he had towards this Hestia woman. The reasons for that probably was his helpfulness with the owls and because he had not seen Dedalus turn angry on him yet. Therefore Vernon did not know how far he could stretch his patience. Hestia on the other hand did not have a lot of patience for Vernon Dursley at all. 

Petunia kept her mouth shut about the subject of Harry Potter nowadays, however they all knew she had a rather different feeling towards her nephew than her husband did. At least she cared a little more about him than he did. She did not express her concerns about her nephew at all to them. She did not really have to. Hestia, Ax and Dedalus already knew. Vernon probably did not know how his own wife felt about their nephew at all. However that did it not matter to any of them.

Dudley did not say anything negative about Harry anymore either. On thecontrary, he had turned rather curious and even asked questions about Harry and his life that he did not know anyting about. Usually when his parents was not around. Hestia, Dedalus and Ax all thought it rather strange at the begining of their aquaintence, that they did not know anything about a person they had helped bring up in their own house. However, by now they knew the Dursleys quite well, and could easily understand why young Harry did not confide in them at all. Most of the time Hestia, Dedalus and Ax felt utterly sorry for Harry. Other times they were just baffled about the possibility of keeping such a relationship the two adults in this family had managed to develope between them.

Ax had actually told Hestia and Dedalus quite early on to leave Vernon alone. Even though Hestia silently threatened to turn him into a pincushion several times during the day under her breath. Ax was really ever so patient with him. He could see the same rude and ugratefulness as his two magical friends did, only he knew within himself that in the end Harry would be victorious for the good in the world and Vernon would be eatng all of his horrible words about him. That was a good enough venegance for him. Besides, Ax did not mind Vernon much at all, as long as he was not talking or thinking about Harry. In fact he could be quite a nice diversion from Ax's everyday life. Ax and Vernon were about the same age, Ax were only a few years older, and seeing as Vernon was a muggle he knew about the same things in the muggle world that Ax could not interest anybody else with in the wizarding world. Like football, motorcars, telephones, computers and aeroplanes. Ax loved aeroplanes. He had never entered one in his entire life, allthough he would dearly like to do so one day. Vernon on the other hand had been several times inside an aeroplane. He had travelled to a place called Majorca a couple of times, and the two of them could spend hours talking about aeroplanes, football, cars and all the different kinds of drinks and cigars from the muggle world. Theese conversations usually took place after a couple of glasses of brandy each. 

Vernon, in his glass one evening actually made Ax want to take a trip into the muggle world again, just as soon as this bloody war could end. There were many things Ax really would like to explore since last he visited. Theese days they were not able to even approach Vernons well hidden but beautiful company car sitting in the shed a mile or so away, because of the safety measures they had to take. Therefore, Ax had to imagine everything Vernon told him about it all.  

The day after this conversation Vernon woke up feeling as if he had done something really stupid. He remembered that he had invited Arabrax to Privet Drive for a visit after the war was over. How would Petunia like that if she found out? And how on earth could he, Vernon, possibly be seen with a man looking like Ax back in Privet Drive. That simply would not do! He did not mind too much how Ax looked around the house where they lived at present. However, out in the real world he surely would mind quite alot. He almost panicked thinking about it. He concluded that he would not tell Petunia about it at all. If the topic ever was brought up again between them he would simply make up some sort of an excuse for not making it happen. Allthough he would rather he'd never said anything about an invitation to Ax at all.As it turned out Ax had forgot all about that and had not been taking Vernons invitation to his home in Surrey serious at all. Thus, Vernon suffered his agony for quite some time, while Ax on the other hand did not have any thought about it in his head.

One afternoon when it had been downpouring with rain for an entire week, and everybody was rather sick of beeing confined to the house. Ax asked them if they perhaps should try for a game of ping-pong?

Everybody turned their heads around and looked at him as if he had lost his marbles. He simply smiled at them and said that he could set it up if they wanted him to? They all agreed to this divertion. He then asked them to excuse him for a moment. He left the room for about twenty minutes. When he returned he asked them to join him down in the dungeons. Dudley knew this place very well indeed and he had proudly managed to conceal the room from his parents. Thus he was a little dissapointet that Ax now had decided to tell them all about it himself. He did not understand why he should have to do that though. However, as Ax opened the door and they entered the room it was nothing like Dudley knew it at all. It had changed completely. There were one ping-pong table placed in the middle of the room. There were a tribune on one side of the table, and a scoreboard hanging on the opposite wall from the tribune. Everything seemed to be fully equipped for them to have a little match. Dudley was ever so surprised. However he liked it and joined in with the others cheering it on. Even Petunia clapped her hands together happy to get any diversion from the dreadful weather outside. They decided they would play eachother in turns, and they could make some sort of a turnament out of it.

There were two sets of warderobes in this ping-pong hall, one for the women and one for the men. In there they all found fitting clothes in a closet. Ax told them that the house elves had helped him arrange all of that. The entire house elf family had also joined in to watch them play. Cookie had even brought a picknik-basket with several sandwiches, crisps fruit and snacks in addition to different soft drinks for them. The afternoon turned out to be quite eventfull and jolly after all.

They all were a little apprhehensive at frist as to who were to play whom. Except from Vernon Dursley. He boasted that he had been a real champion back in the days, when he had attended Smeltings himself. Therefore Ax suggested that he himself would play against Vernon. As it was ages ago that Vernon had been any kind of champion at all and certailnly quite a few cakes and puddings ago, Ax let Vernon win in the end simply to humour him. He imagined that Vernon could be quite a sore looser actually.

However they all found him very much a horrible winner as well, he was boasting so much he made the others quite reluctant to even try the game on. Except from his son Dudley. He was after all a boxing champ, there was not much different in ping pong he thought. You kept your eye on the ball and smashed. Vernon ended up loosing the game to Dudley. Vernon usually would not have faced that kind of defeat well at all, except for the fact that Dudley  was his only son. After this Ax decided they would change the teams up a bit. Let the women have a go at it. It turned out that both Petunia and Hestia were rather good at this and they gave them a quite cool show. None of the women had been boasting their abilities, therefore the rest of them were rather shocked. It was as if Vernon and Dudley saw Petunia for the very first time of their life. The two of them agreed that she was amazing at Ping-pong. How had she managed to hide this information from them they could not comprehend. She simply told them at the end of the game, that she and her sister had used to play alot when they were young. 

Hestia had ofcourse put away her wand when she was playing Petunia, therefore it ended beeing a fair game that Petunia won quite exceedingly.

Dedalus on the other hand was cheating rather alot by using magic when he next was playing towards Dudley. He became rather angry with Dedalus because of it, and threatened to give him an honest punch in the face if he did not put his wand away. They all laughed at Dudley for that, but cheered him on, because none of them approved on Dedalus´s cheating. Dedalus ended up promising them all he would not do it again, and lost rather discrasefully to Dudley at the end of it. 

Soon enough they were becoming warm and the competition started to sharpen up a bit. Petunia was now playing Dudley on his invitation. He wanted to know wich of them actually was the best at this for real. However Petunia naturally wanted to let her dear son win the  entire match so she let him win. Except he actually busted her in it and yelled at her for doing so. In the end she gave him a proper match where she barely won. Dudley felt he saw his mother in a different light because of this and started to respect her in a different way than he had ever done before. Vernon too wanted to play her at this point, but she then excused herself saying she was exhasted. Dudley picked him up on it and proved once and for all that Vernon was quite rubbish at this game compared to him and his mother. All of Vernons boasting turned into nothing eventually.

Instead of listening to any more of Vernons complaining, Ax fetched a bottle of brandy for them to enjoy instead. From then on the two of them cheered the rest of the players on from the side-line. Dedalus wanted to play Dudley, without any cheating this time he said. However, he ended up loosing big time to him and actually sulked a little saying that he would have won if he had used magic. Hestia on the other hand was actually a little better than Dudley, therefore she was to play Petunia again. In the end they all concluded that Petunia had won the entire tournament. To everybodys satisfaction. Vernon had become rather affectionate towards his wife during the afternoon because of it. He had forgotten all about his own boasting and defeat on the matter.

It really had turned out to become a rather nice rainy afternoon after all. None of them turned in until it was rather late in the evening. Quite exhausted from their games, but content with the brilliant diversion and to be able to blow off some steam through the simple act of sports. They decided they would have to do that every now and then after that day. Dudley still kept his secret from his parents about his boxing-room and the swimming pool. But from then on they knew there were a room they could use for entertainment in the basement on days when they did not have anything else to divert themselves.


	41. Routines and Feelings

November turned to december and the weather turned into more wind and the occational sleet. Allthough it had replaced the cold rain it was still kind of boring weather. Dudley just wanted it to snow! He had seen alot of snow on the television from time to time, but had never experienced it himself. Hestia told him that it was a pity then that they were not in the North of Norway as the Order of Phoenix had started planning for them initially. There he probably would have snow and cold in abundance. Hestia confessed to him that she was rather grateful towards Dedalus for remembering his friend Ax and this place, so that they did not have to be staying at such a place. With a sigh she told him that she did not mind the rain or sleet at all compared to that. Snow made everything alot more cumbersome she felt. No, this kind of temperature and weather suited her a lot better, she said. Besides, if the weather was too cold Peter would not be able to come outside at all she reminded him.

Dudley was shocked to know that they even had started to plan to take them out of the country and all the way to the North of Norway!! How could they even consicer such a dangerous place on the earth for them!? There were after all polar bears all over that place, he told her! Hestia laughed at him for his outburst. Then she assured him that there were no polar bears in Norway, only alot of snow at this time of year and darkness. Therefore she reminded him to be ever so grateful to where he actually were staying, instead of a cold and dark place far far away.

Regardless of the dull weathering conditions, Dudley started to look forward to christmas. Even though he now was a seventeen year old young man, he still was looking forward to recieve presents. Therefore he started a count down for christmas day to arrive. He really missed electricity and all of his computer games. However, he knew that there were no hope of getting his hands on anything like that as long as they were staying at the Bee Hive. He only kept thinking that when he got back to Privet Drive he would have a feast on his computer. He imagined he would not leave his room for an entire month or so. 

Nevertheless, where ever he was situated in the world he would simply have to suck it up and be patient. He had been talking alot to Hestia about what was going on outside in the wizarding world, wishing to know as much about it as possible. He had wanted to know as much about Harrys life as possible. Allthough Hestia did not want to elaborate too much about him anymore, Dudley now knew a lot more than he had done before. He also knew that there were a great possibility that they would have to stay there for a long time. After he realized this, he found he actually settled down a lot more than he ever thought that he would at the Bee Hive. Admittig to himself that he would truly enjoy his stay there. Since he was the only human youngster around, he found he got treated ever so much more like an adult than he would have been at Smeltings. He felt alot older around theese people too. Perhaps this was because he was hanging so much with both Poppy and Bumble, and they were children to his eyes. Even though Poppy were only two years younger than him. 

His education was great. He found he enjoyed it better than he ever had thought he would in his entire life, and he gave Hestia all the credit for this. She had such an interesting angle of seeing things that he became quite imaginative himself. She was the only teacher he knew that incorporated humor into her teaching. 

Ax was like the grandfather or nice uncle he had never had in his entire life before. He was usually always on his side if something came up as a discussion or so. His mother also usually sided with him of course, but it was a different matter to have somebody whom he was not related to, siding with him. 

Dedalus was also a rather creative person, and he used Dudley as an interesting interviewing subject about muggles. Dudley still could not resist talking about himself, so he let Dedalus ask him about everything he wanted to. The only topic he did not like to talk to him about was how they all had treated Harry Potter through his life. 

All the house elves had really grown on him too. So yes, Dudley quite liked it there. The house, the garden and the entire farm was beautiful and large, the food was ever so much better there than at Smeltings, he was beeing taught about the wizarding world and how they looked at everything that went on in the world. He even sometimes found himself almost hoping they would be staying there for quite a while.

All of the inhabitants of the Bee Hive had their daily routines so the time passed on relatively easily for all of them. Dedalus was writing his books or articles, Hestia and Dudley were in the classroom studying, Vernon was upstairs in his office working, or else he would now be found on the sofa nowadays in their parlour reading his newspapers. Ax still loved to stay outside with Dig and the animals despite of the weather. All of the house elves usually had their different chores to take care of during the day. It was only Petunia whom appeared to have nothing much to do. However, she had told Vernon that she was quite content, that she had picked up some idea of doing arts and crafts. She knitted, sewed a little and even occationally painted a little bit. Vernon settled with this idea, and kept telling her that she was lucky after all, now she did not have to do all of that house work and cooking that she constantly did around Privet Drive. Little did he know of her little secret. 


	42. Christmas

Dudley woke up early on the 24 th of December. He could not understand why on earth he had woken up just then. He checked his watch at the night stand and it showed only 03:12 in the morning. He noticed that it was incredible bright outside concidering the hour, so he got out of bed and went over to the window to check out why. He then realized that it was snowing quite heavily outside. The snow was falling in huge snowcrystals and everywhere he looked the grounds were completely covered in white. The surroundings around the Bee Hive looked like it had been coated with white candy floss. Even all all of the huge trees surrounding the place had that look. All the different plants and trees seemed alot bigger simply because of the heavy layer of snow covering them. Dudley found it quite beautiful actually, and he felt a strong desire to get dressed right there and then and simply run outside in the snow to jump up and down in it like a child. Instead, he opened the window wide open to feel as if he was a part of the snow and the garden. He reached out his hand and felt snow flakes melt in his palm. He whooped a little to himself, grabbed some snow from the window sill and made it into a snowball and threw it towards the nearest tree. He had almost forgot how cold snow really felt. He shook his hands and stuck them under his armpits in his pyjama to warm them up again. A cold gush of wind suddenly ruffled his hair and he decided to close the window.

Dudley smiled happily to himself. Finally the snow he had longed for all month had arrived. He almost could not wait until the morning to go outside in the garden and play. He certainly did not feel like the seventeen year old teenager that went around beating up young children back home at the moment. No, he felt as if he was five years old and hoping that Santa Claus would appear on the night sky above him. He had butterflies in his belly and wished that all of his christmasess would be just like this for ever and ever.

Then he remembered the days before christmas when he had been at Smeltings. They usually had a count down before christmas in his dormitory, and the school always arranged some sort of a christmas party before they all went home to their parents to celebrate the holidays. Dudley simply loved christmas. Especially since he and Harry had parted for eachothers separate schools. He then had had his parents all to himself and everything at Privet Drive had been just as he wanted it to be.

Nowadays he did not understand what those feelings he used to have about Harry was all about. Theese days he would have loved for his cousin to join them there at the Bee Hive for christmas. Dudley found that he really wanted him to be all safe and sound. Dudley thought that he could come visiting, and Harry could even bring his friends along if he wanted to. Except, that would never ever happen, he knew that for sure. His cousin wanted to be togehter with his magical friends, not his stupid old family. Dudley wondered a little where he was at the moment, and if he was allright. Since Dudley had come to understand exactly how famous his cousin were, he had started to see Harry in a completely different light. That and the fact that he kind of had got to know Harry a little bit better through Hestia and Dedalus.

Still sitting at the windowsill looking out on the garden, Dudley started to feel a little cold and glanced over at his warm and comfortable bed covered in a wonderful down duvet. Dudley was hoping that his cousin also were staying somewhere nice and cosy. He then went back to bed. His feet was getting cold by now and he had started to shiver a little.

Arabrax had told them that the vally the Bee Hive was situated in could become very cold indeed during the winter. Seeing as the house was situated at the very end of the valley, the place sometimes felt like it was sitting in some sort of a cold-dip that stretched from the oean and reached all the way back to the Bee Hive. The fog could sometimes become thick as cotton. However, Ax was ever so lucky to have Dig and the other house elfs. Dig had put some sort of a heating charm over the farmhouses so that the animals down in the valley would not be too cold. They were all inside ofcourse, however the lake always froze over and the animals did not like it when it was really cold outside. Nor did Ax and his gouty state he had told them.

Thinking of all theese things and feeling happy about the snow falling outside Dudley fell asleep once more. He did not wake up again until his mother woke him with a nice cup of hot chocolate and toast with strawberry jam, his favorites. He liked beeing woken up by his mother. She had always been the most caring and loving one of his parents. He liked his father too, but Dudley felt he could not talk to him in the same way he could to his mother.

She sat with him as he ate, and Dudley aired some of his thoughts he had been having earlier that night regarding Harry. She assured him that Harry probably was allright or they would have heard about it. Just as the others had told them. She was sure he was all right somewhere in a nice house somewhere, just like themselves. Besides, he and his friends were probably able to arrange some sort of magic to keep themselves nice and warm. She then told him that her sister Lilly was always boasting that she could conjure up one of theese blue coloured portable flames that she always carried around with her during the winter. Dudley happened to have one exactly like that sitting on his nightstand at the moment, and the both of them were staring at it as she spoke of her sister. Petunia said that their parents had been so impressed with it, that they kept it in the middle of the dinner table whenever Lily came home for christmas. Annoying little thing she was, Petunia said, more to herself than to Dudley.

This time Dudley truly felt a little curious about his mother and asked her gently if she had ever wished that she could be doing magic herself when she was a little girl? Petunia looked at him as if he was a stranger for a moment. Dudley simply looked back at her really wanting her to tell him the truth. Petunia swalloewd a little and confessed that perhaps when she had been a very young girl she had wanted it. Allthough she told him that she probably had just wanted it because her parents had been so overly exited with Lilys "great achievements". Well then, she had never known how to do it, therefore she stopped paying much attention to all of that nonsense, she told him. Dudley had never asked his mother anything about her childhood before, however today he felt like knowing a little more about it and asked her if her parents had been any magical at all. She told him that they were not. It was only Lily whom were special in their family.

Dudley also asked his mother if his aunt Lilly ever had used magic against her and how she had felt about everything when she was a girl. Petunia swollowed another lump in her throat for her dear Diddy giving her sister the title she really knew that she had deserved from him. Then she told him that Lily never had used it against her, she had used to help Petunia out if someone tried to bully her. However, Lily had met a boy who was magical and he had not been nice at all, keeping Lily away from herself using his magic against her. She did not elaborate on the subject, however, about she told him how she felt about Severus Snape and how he had treated her. She did not tell Dudley about the young boy's love for her sister, and his hate against herself simply because she was a simple «muggle». She left the subject at that and asked if Dudley had noticed the snow outside. He told her about that night, and that he had wanted to go outside at once. Dudley was theb successfully distracted by Petunia from the subject about his mothers childhood and his aunt Lily.

The entire day of the 24th Dudley was outside playing in the snow. The garden was now covered in more than a foot deep with snow. He did all the things he had not done since he was a child, and they had had a little more than an inch of snow at Privet Drive for one day. He made several snow angels and bulit an enormous snowman. He made a lot of snow lanterns and some sort of a snow-cave together with Poppy and Bumble. Then they walked up one of the hillsides just behind the house and set down the slopes riding on toboggans that Poppy had conjured up. This was so funny to Dudley he almost pissed his pants. The speed they made down the hills was utterly neckbreaking. They went up and down so many times that Dudley was quite exhausted at the end of the day. He actually almost fell asleep at the dinner table that evening.

His mother warned him before he went to bed that evening, that he would not recieve as many presents as he was used to that christmas because they really had no opportunity at all to go shopping. Dudley felt a little jolt in his stomach with this. Then he realized he had not been thinking all that much about recieving presents at all, because he had been so busy doing other things.

Dudley went to bed early that evening, thinking that it had been a wonderful day, and probably the best christmas-eve he had ever experienced in his entire life. He was not used to this much snow at all, and he had never been riding a toboggans down a slope before in his entire life.

He fell asleep immedeately and did not wake up untill he heard the wireless playing christmas carols from downstairs. He jumped out of bed, picked up his morning robe, hastily put on his slippers and ran downstairs into the livingroom. There he found an enormous christmas tree that went from floor to roof. It occupied the entire far end of the livingroom. He noticed that it was very nicely decorated indeed. Ax told him that it was Petunia, Cookie and Poppy whom had done it after he had gone to bed the previous night. Under the tree was actually a whole stack of presents, and on the mantle he saw six christmas stockings hanging neatly on a row. One for each of them. Except Dudley wanted to give Peter a christmas present too, so he asked Hestia discretly if she could conjure up a tiny little stocking for him in white and red tripes. Ofcourse she did, and he went over to the mantle to put it up together with the other stockings. He put a tiny little gift he had made for Peter into it.

Dudley then went to the front door, opened it and called for Peter to come inside for a moment. It took Peter a little while to get ready to go outside, but finally he came flying through the wintery garden. He had put on so many layers of clothes that he had trouble flying the short distance between the his bee hive and the house. When he reached the house Dudley closed the door behind him and told him to fly over to the mantlepiece in the livingroom and checck out what was there for him. Peter undressed on the mantle as it got way too warm for him to be inside the house with so many clothes on. Then he dived into the christmas sock Dudley had made for him and emerged with a teeny tiny flute and an everlasting flower for him to give to his queen bee. Peter had never recieved a present in his entire life so you can imagine his overwhelming feelings. He sobbed his thanks and wanted to give Dudley a big hug. Allthough all he could do was to hug his face. Dudley was also rather moved by his actions, however quite pleased with Peters reaction alltogether. Peter had told Dudley back in august that his biggest wish was to learn how to play a flute. Now he at least had a flute to practice on. Dudley had asked Bumble to help him make the flute for him to give to Peter. Dudley loved that kind of magic. He felt that it was not dangerous at all and he was not scared of it at all anymore.

After Peter had stopped sobbing Arabrax told Dudley that he should check under the christmas tree if he found a gift for himself. He did, and quickly unwrapped it. He had recieved a portable video game from his parents, and Hestia had bewitched the battery to become everlasting. He went over the moon about this. Seeing as he had been without any of his videogames for such a long time he almost forgot to check if there were any more presents for him at all.

After a little while beeing totally engrossed with his game, he remembered something and found the one present that he had made for his mother to give to her. It was a new apron that he had got some help from Poppy to make. In fact she had almost made the entire thing for him, but Dudley had told her how he wanted it to look. It was quite similar to her favourite one that she had left behind at Privet Drive. Salmon coloured in a thin fine fabric. Petunia choked and started to sniff her nose by it. She then planted a big kiss on his cheeks. Even though Dudley now was 17 years old, and had used to hate all of that back in Privet Drive, at this moment he did not mind it at all. He just smiled at her and told her she was welcome.

To his father he had made a nice cigar box, and he had bought some cigars from Ax to put inside. Vernon too was really moved by his present from his son. He did not kiss Dudley on the cheek however, instead he shook his hand incredibly buisness-like. Dudley knew that this was how his father wanted people to see him. As if he was not too affectionate with his son. He had always said that he hated theese so called "nancyboys", and he certainly did not want anyone to think that he nor his son was such a person.

Ax actually gave Dudley a pipe, wich did not sit very well with his parents he knew, but Ax did not mind that at all. He figured that Dudley was old enough to decide for himself if he was going to be smoking or not. However it was totally empty, and he told Dudley that he could teach him how to grow his own tobacco leaves in the spring if he wanted to.

Hestia gave him a book filled with magical pictures and newspaper articles of Harry. All of the pictures moved. But Dudley was so used to the room with the paintings by now and he had been looking in the wizarding newspapers alot during his stay there, so he felt quite easy around those kind of things by now. He loved that book so much! He smiled to Hestia and thanked her, then he put the book away so that his father did not start prying what it was all about. This was his book about his cousin, and he wanted to have it to himself somehow.

Dedalus gave Dudley the best gift of them all really. He had ordered a lot of sweets from a wizarding shop called Honedukes, and it contained all kinds of different sweets Dudley had never even seen before in his life. It was beond anything he could ever imagine. There was levitating sherberts, lickorish-wands and a big box called Bertie Blotts every flavour beans amongst other things. Dedalus warned him before he opened that box and said that it might contain sweets that tasted like liver, earwax or even bogey. Allthough there were also the sweetest strawberry drops or nicest toffee you could imagine, he told Dudley. One would simply never know wich one to would came across though. Dudley was more than a little sceptical to it at first, and told Dedalus about the sweet that made his tongue swell like a python. Dedalus chuckled a little and said this was typical of the Weasly twins to do something like that. Though looking at Dudleys sceptical face he assured him that he had not bought anything like that in it for him, nor anything that would harm him in any way. He had ordered it from a sweetshop in Hogsmeade right outside of Hogwarts. Dudley trusted him to not be messing with him and tried some of the sweets. It was delicious, however he did not touch that Bertie Blotts Every Flavour box at all. He thought he might save that one for his best friend Piers when he returned to Privet Drive. Looking back on that particular day Dudley found he really did not miss anything from his usual christmas celebrations back in Privet Drive at all.

Dudley had been told beforehand that the House elf family would recieve a couple of guests for christmas. It turned out to be their two oldest sons whom was working at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. They had been given permission from their headmaster to visit family or friends during the hollidays if they liked. The two of them were called Button and Cork, and was what one could call fully grown house elfs. Button was 18 years old and Cork was 21. Ax had invited the entire house elf family to join them for lunch to cath up with everything that went on at Hogwarts those days.

Button and Cork looked like a mixture of their two parents. Button, who was the oldest of the house elf children had blonde hair like his mother. He had the same meaty nose as his father and the same pertrouting teeths. His ears, however, was small and the shape of a drop, just like his mother. Cork had red hair, a small nose, two huge ears like his father, but straight teeths like his mother. Cork had his fathers hight and Button was the same hight as his mothers.

The Bee Hive kitchen had been in full activity all morning and the turkey for the evenings dinner was already in the oven. Then Cookie could conclude that they were on schedule with everything else. In addition they had also prepared a nice big lunch for them all to sit down together and enjoy.

The two house elf brothers could tell them all about the new regime for the children and the teachers at Hogwarts now that Professor Snape was the headmaster. They told them that there had never been given such strict rules at the school before. Teachers was supposed to surveile everything that went on with the students, and handing out corporal punishment had become expected. Except all of the teachers whom had worked there for a while refused to do so.

Surprisingly, the House elves at Hogwarts did not notice any, or much change in their everyday routines. Even though their dear old Professor Dumbledore now had diseased and had been replaced with the one who allegedly had killed him; Professor Snape. They found that their new Headmaster treated all the Hogwarts house elves with respect just like Dumbledore had done. He had simply told them that he would like them to please keep up their work exactly like they had done under Professor Dumbledores regime. This was a little surprising to them all, because Professor Snape had a general rumour of not beeing very pleasant at all to any of the students except the ones from Slytherin house. Allthough they all knew him fairly well since Professor Snape had been working there for about seventeen years by then. Most of the house elves had not payed him much attention until he had been the one to murder Professor Dumbledore, and he later became the new headmaster. Except they all knew that he generally did have a nasty reputation. Dig however, told them that one would always be able to recognize a bad wizard from a good one by the way he treated his house elf. Button told them of a house elf called Sphinky at Hogwarts. She was Professor Snapes personal servant at the school. She had never complained about him once. True, a house elf was not allowed to complain about anything, however the Hogwarts house elves did talk to eachother. That was the way of making the system go all the way around. The little she could reveale to them about him was that he was a polite, quiet and lonly man.

Still there had been made a new regime between the teachers and students theese days, and everything from routines and the general mood had changed completely since his inception. However, the rumour amongst the house elves were that his two so called friends, Professor Amycus and Professor Alecto Carrow were the ones running the show for him. The two of them were obviously bad wizards. Button figured that Pofessor Snape in reality were a nice man but that he had to keep a rough apperance to everybody so that he could still remain in the Dark Lords good books. They told them that the house elves at Hogwarts had had many endless discussions about this. However, they were never supposed to reveal any of their thoughts or the Headmasters secrets to anyone outside the elfish community at Hogwarts. So they could not elaborate any more than they already had done.

Dedalus told the two house elves about Petuias brief aquaintance with professor Snape when they were children and the two elves were indeed curious about Petunias sister and her relationship with him. However Petunia refused to talk to them about Severus Snape and his feelings towards Lily. She had told them what she had wanted to reveal at the beginning of their stay at the Bee Hive and that was that.

However, after they all had finished their delicious lunch the others continued their discussion about Lilys and Snapes relationship for quite a while. That was after Petunia and Vernon had decided to go upstairs to their parlour to relax for a while.

After a little while listening to them all, Dudley decided to go outside for a while just to get some fresh air and to think about what the house elf brothers had passed on to them. He followed Peter outside and made sure he got safely back inside his bee hive. Dudley carried the flower and the flute for him as Peter had too much clothes on to barely manage his flying. After seeing him securely back inside his hive Dudley went over to the snowman he had built the day before to admire it. There had fallen some more snow on it since the previous day so he patted it on to the snowman and made him even taller and wider then he had been before. After this he started to feel a little cold so he decided to go inside again and perhaps try out that videogame he had recieved from his parents that morning.

The others was still sitting around the table discussing Harry and all sort of other Hogwarts things so Dudley brought his presents upstairs to his bedroom and decided to stay up there for a moment. He did not want to join his parents in the parlour. He would rather be on his own for a little while. He kept thinking about what his mother had told them about her childhood that morning and about Harrys mother and her friend Snape. He started wondering a little why his mother had acted the way she had done towards Harry when she knew all about theese things from the wizarding world. Especially when she always had tried to make Harry believe they did not even exist. Why had all of this been so necesarry to her and his father to keep a secret from Harry and him he could not comprehend.

Then he started up his videogame and the whole matter dissapeared from his mind. He was sitting in his nice bed popped up against the beds headboard with soft pillows all around him for hours, until he fell asleap on top of the covers. At six o´clock his mother knocked on his door and woke him up. She asked him if he wanted to take a nice bath before dinner? She told him that she would put out some nice clothes for him to wear at dinner. Dudley did not quite understand why he had to get dressed up for dinner out there in the wilderness. Nevertheless, he would really like to take a bath at the moment, so he did his mothers bidding.

When he came downstairs about 45 minutes later he found his parents in their finest clothes. He was not surprised at this because he knew his mother was rather maticulous with theese kind of things on christmas day back at Privet Drive. What surprised him was to find Ax in a rather oldfashioned but goodlooking suit. It was hazel coloured and a typical cut from the seventies. He had a yellow shirt with the most enormous collars on it, and his cuffs was poking out from under his coat. He had a brown buttened up vest in silk to match the suit, and Dudley found that he actually looked rather cool, despite the fact that he was a little out of fachion perhaps. He looked almost as if he could have been a part of that old band called the Bee Gees back in the days. His brown leather shoes was nicely polished and he carried himself in a totally different matter with them on. He had also combed his bushy hair into a bun in his neck and he obviously had been taking a bath as well, because he strongly smelled like a pinecone. He even had roses in his cheek as if he had been given a rather rough face scrub.

Hestia and Dedalus was also in their finest clothes. Hestia had put on the pretty outfit she had inherited from Petunia back in september. Except she obviously had changed her blouse into something rather more festive and christmas-like. It was made of silver coloured silk, and it had some assorted types of snowflakes here and there sprinkled on to it. Her hair had been fixed into a pretty bun decorated with pearls at the back of her neck, as if she had been seeing a really good hairdresser or somtehing. She also had some pretty pumps on in blue velvet. The shoes somehow clashed with the rest of her outfit, but Dudley thought that she looked great compared to whatever she used to wear every day around there.

Dedalus was actually the only one whom truely looked like he belonged to the magical commuity there that evening. He had put on something that resembled something like a very expensive night gown. Except it was floorlengthy and his sleeves stretched almost down to the floor too. He had tied something that looked like a golden rope several times around his waist. The end of the ropes had some enormous golden puffes to make some sort of a decoration to his outfit. The fabric of the robe itself was made of pure silk and was coloured in the deepest night-sky-blue. It was sprinkeld with stars and all sort of astronomical charts. The linings was made of pure gold and he was sporting a necklace made of some sort of peculiar multicoloured stone. He told them later that evening that it actually was a rather peculiar Gobstone he had won from a fellow student back when he himself was attending Hogwarts. This stone gave him luck he told them. He also informed them that he had a matching hat to his robes that he would very much like to wear with the rest of his outfit, except, Ax had told him not to do so indoors. Dedalus realized that it probably would be a little too much for their muggle family if he looked even more than a wizard than he already did. Therefore Dedalus had followed Ax´s lead and combed his hair into a bun in the neck. As if this was the Bee Hive fashion for the evening.

Vernon Dursley did snort quietly to himself at the sight of Dedalus´s outfit. However he did not say anyting else about it. He only thanked the heavens that none of their neighbours could witness this ridiculousness. Other than that they all had a lovely evening together with all the house elves who was there at the moment.

The house elf family had also put on their very finest clothes. Except the two elves from Hogwarts, they simply had put on their whitest and cleanest toga-towel with the hogwarts crest on it. They were utterly proud to have aquired such attractive positions for any house elves, and they would not trade any garment in the world for their uniforms. All of them had been taking a scrub-down bath that afternoon, their hair and nails had all been trimmed and the ones inhabiting the Bee Hive had put on their finest clothes they were in possesion of. Poppy had put a bow in her hair to make her as sweet as any pretty little girl. She certainly did not care that she was a teenager, she just wanted to be as cute as possible forever she told Dudley.

There had been three rather magnificent cooks in the kitchen working alongside that day. Cork had found it incredible odd that a human beeing would even bother with anything that had to do with cooking when there were house elves to do the work. However, his mother explained to him that muggles did not have access to house elves and that muggles might have the same interests in cooking as house elves did. She reminded him that humans had feelings and passion about things just as well as house elves did. Cork respected his mother too much to say much else, and when he saw how nicely his mother and this muggle woman worked alongside eachother he almost felt like he was not needed in the kithchen. Except his mother had the knack of giving him assignements to make sure everyone who wanted to, was involved in the preparing of the food. This was one of the main reasons he had fallen in love with cooking. His mothers ability to include everyone in a task and make it interesting was admirable. She had given him confidence whenever he had achieved something, big or small, it did not matter. He had brought this wisdom with him to Hogwarts where he now taught younger house elves how to work the ropes around there, and he simpy loved what he did for a living.

Now the dinner was served and they all sat down to eat, all of them oohing and aahing the delight they were about to consume. The main course was one of the turkies Dedalus had managed to get a hold of before they had brought the Dursleys to the Bee Hive. Ax and Dig had slaughtered it the previous evening. Cookie, Cork and Petunia had been preparing it with the best of their abilities all day. It had been roasting in the oven for quite some hours during the day, carefully observed by them all. They really had outdone themselves with this dinner. There were all sorts of deliciousness to be had. There was a wonderful creamy sauce Petunia was particular proud of and she could announce to Vernon that she was happy to having got get her hands on the recipe. There were potatoes, yams, prunes, bacon, sprouts and a lovely waldorf salad to go with it.

Everything was perfect. After dinner they waited a little before they served the pudding to make sure they all had room for some more food. In the mean time they listened to the wireless where a woman called Celestia Warbeck gave them christmas carols. Dudley did not like her very much. She had a rather too sharp voice that simply was not pleasant to his ears. Therefore he joined some of the house elf kids in the talking-painting-room to chat freely. Button was rather intrigued with Dudleys clothes and told him over and over that it was a nice tailored suit. He could not stop admiring and touching the fabric it seemed.

However his brother Cork told Dudley that his famous cousin Harry must be on to something huge. He said he was bound to be. There was no other reason for him and his friends to be out and about on their own. Harrys own house elf Kreacher worked at the school at the moment and he had been given a locket that nobody could make into revealing what it meant. He was ever so secretive, he said. Button told his brother not to bother with him, he was still Harry Potters servant and he was bound to keep his secrets, he should know that. The two brothers argued a little amongst themselves about loyality and secretkeeping for a little while. Letting Dudley in on more than they had inteded to initially. Not that they revealed anyting, except they gave him an insight in how their everyday life was like at Hogwarts. Then Dudley told them that he actually had met with this Kreacher elf when Harry had decided to send him to Hogwarts. All of this actually made Dudley feel like he had some sort of partcipation to their world as well. The two house elf boys seemed to feel somehting along the same way. They asked him to tell them about his first meeting with Kreacher. Dudley did tell them what he remembered, that he was a dirty old thing wearing a filthy rug of a toga and that he was incredible ill-tempered. Dudleys shock at the sight of him was something he was not likely to forget anytime soon. Button confirmed that he had been rather filthy when he had arrived at Hogwarts, however he was bound to do his masters bidding and so there was nothing Kreacher could do about it. Button told Dudley that Kreacher had changed a lot only over the last couple of months. When he had returned from his summer-holiday-leave he had become happier, cleaner and that was also when he had been given that locket he constantly carried around his neck for some reason or other. Anyway, he now had started to talk nicely about Harry Potter, and he had become rather good friends with Dobby, another house elf-friend of Harrys. The two of them had been bitter rivals on opposing sides when it came to Harry earlier. So this utter turnaround from Kreacher regarding his views on Harry was almost unnerving. Nevertheless he was so much easier to collaborate with, opposed to earlier, that no-one bothered to even question him about why he had changed his views anymore.

After a while keeping to themselves Ax entered the room and asked them all to join them in the diningroom where they now was about to serve the pudding. They all ate themselves full again, and dosed off on the coaches. The house elf family all went downstairs to spend time together with their family. The rest of the household enjoyed eachothers company by watching the news on Dudleys little portable television set. They even got a concert of the London Symphony Orchestra playing christmas carols, and bringing holiday spirit to them for real. Ax was so moved by all of this that he was sobbing hard into his hankerchief, Hestia patted him gently on his arm repeating the words "there, there" to calm him. He told them he thought it was all so beautiful, and that he had missed the christmas caroling the most from when he had lived with the muggles as a kid. Dudley there and then decided that he wanted Ax to keep the old television set when ever they were going to leave the place. He told him so immediately. He certainly did not need that particular tv when he returned to Privet Drive. He had a more modern tv set back home, that he had not been allowed to bring with him. Seeing yet a nother tear leave Ax´s eyes he knew that he had given him a dear present indeed.

Dudley was glad he had done that when he went to bed later that evening. He thought to himself that it was the least he could do to an old man he really liked and respected. He really had come to think of Ax as his uncle or something like that. With theese thoughts young Dudley fell asleep while the snow kept falling silently outside.


	43. New Years

The following days after christmas Dudley hardly noticed at all. He spent alot of time together with his new video game upstairs in his room. One afternoon he noticed that he had finished all his sweets and really wanted some more. Therefore, he went downstairs looking for his mum to ask if there was anything left of the ginger newts from the day before. He had never been inside the kitchen before, however Poppy had told him wich door was the right one to lead him there. He opened the door, where he found a set of staircases he did not even know existed. Down there he found another door wich he entered. What revealed itself inside that room rooted him to the spot. There he clearly could see his own mother working alongside Cookie, preparing lunch, wich in itself was not shocking at all. Only there seemed to be quite alot of magic going on in the room as far as he could tell. It actually looked as if they were working together quite seamlessly. Dudley could hardly see who did the magic and who did not. His mom certainly had become quite used to magic around there it seemed. Rooted to the spot and his jaws falling to his knees he could not manage to utter one single word. Petunia and Cookie obviously had worked out so many routines together that one could almost think Petunia was a witch perfoming magic herself. She was not however, and all of a sudden spotting her own son standing in the doorway made her scream and drop whatever she held in her hands. Cookie was there in an instant picking it up and asking Dudley politely if there were anything he needed, as if nothing particular had been going on at all. His mother had frozen to the spot and was staring at him with large popping eyes as if he had witnessed some kind of a crime she had performed. Neertheless, she came to her senses again quickly enough. Dragged Dudley inside the kitchen and closed the door firmly behind him. Then she sat him down on a stool and told him not to repeat anything of what he had seen to Vernon.

It was not as if she had done anything horrible or anything. It was simply a shock for him not to see her flinch everytime there were some tiny magic in the room. She had after all been very hard indeed on Harry about magic all through his life. She told Dudley in earnest that she had been concealing her easyness with magic from him and his father around this place because she knew Vernon did not approve of it at all. Then she started to sob and begged Dudley please not to say anything to his father. She told him she was having the time of her life preparing all of this lovely food together with Cookie. She honestly wished she could bring her back home with her. Because everything was so much funnier with Cookie and her magic, and preparing food was ever so much faster and lovelier. Besides, she had never met anyone who shared her deep passion for cleanlyness and order than Cookie did. The two of them had really bonded stronger than Petunia had ever done with any other human friend in the muggle world. Not even her friend Yvonne was as close to her as Cookie had become in this short amount of time. Yvonne shared Petunias fondness for gossip and beeing a good housewife to her husband, but everything else they might have had in common basically ended there.

Dudley had only really come downstairs to get something sweet to eat, but now he saw the opportunity to do some innocent blackmailing out of his dear old mother. He had not done that to anyone since he last was at Smeltings, and he knew he was actually rather good at it. He also knew his mother was quite an easy target. He told her that on one condition would he not mention anything of this to his father; if he got an assorted stack of sweets and sodas or lemonades to his room whenever he wanted it. Petunia agreed to his terms at once. She was so desperate for him to keep her so called big secret, that she did not even blink. She did not even notice Poppys scolding eyes at her because of her easy yielding to her sons wishes.

Dudley left the kitchen with a bigger pile of chocolate-chip cookies, honey cakes, home made fudge and sherberts and ofcourse a bottle of home made soda than he had ever dreamed of when he went downstairs in the first place. He chuckled and hummed all the way upstairs again. He locked the door to his room and started to wholf it all down. He found he was actually quite impressed with his mother because of her changed attitude towards magic. Coming to think of it, he should not have been surprised at all, she was after all the sister of a witch. Besides, she must have been quite used to it when she was growing up. Also he did understand how she felt about not letting his father know about any of it. It was commonly known around there that Vernon assosiated anything with magic to do with Harry, and for some reason or other he really loathed Harry it seemed. No, Dudley would not mind keeping this little secret for his mother. After all, he himself had become so used to magic by now he hardly noticed it much. He even found great joy in it all, especially when it was something to benefit himself.

Later that afternoon Ax told them all that they could not be celabrating newyears-eve shooting fireworks as he knew the Dursleys usually did outside in the muggle world. He told them he, Hestia and Dedalus had discussed it all over, and they all were afraid it would draw too much attention to the place. If any Death Eaters or spies for You Know Who was in the general area they would probably see it. If they did, they would most likely investigate closer why he would be so particularly jolly while the rest of the magical community were supposed to be feeling immensly depressed. He did not want to risk drawing any kind of attention towards the place if he could avoid it. They had even heard a warning about it on the wireless that very afternoon. They had told the magical community that there was no reason to celebrate anyway and that people might just hold on to their fireworks until the Chief Death Eater had fallen.

This ment to Dudley that newyears eve was setting out to become the only true boring holiday they had celebrated at the Bee Hive so far, or so he believd at least. However, Cookie and his mother, ofcourse served a lovely three cours dinner as usually when there was something special to celebrate. Dudley now knew his mother had a hand in it as well and it seemed that the two of them had been cooking all day. They had a lovely creamed onion soup with cheese and garlic crutons for starters.

The main course was a perfectly made beef Wellington with a twist where they had used both garlic and honey with the meat. Nobody had tasted anything like it and everyone agreed that they liked it alot.

The dessert was a rather large portion each of hot chocolate fondant with warm raspberry sauce. To drink they all had a taste of Ax's lovely home made apple cider for a start. There was a little alcohol in it. But not so much that they would mind giving Dudley some. He liked it alot. However, Ax, Dedalus and Vernon also had their taste of Ax's home brewed ale and also his home-made brandy.

Dedalus had provided them with party hats, streamers and firecrackers. The firecrackers were nothing like the ones Dudley was used to, and Ax warned the Dursley family that they were magically manufactured and contained different things than the muggle ones did. He also warned them that they banged a lot louder than the muggle firecrackers. Not so loud, however, that anybody lurking in the nearby area would hear it. Dudley was exited, and Vernon was ofcourse quite apprehensive. Petunia had seen it all before when her sister had brought them back from her wizarding world, so she knew what would happen. Still Petunia told them firmly that the firecrackers certainly would have to wait until after dinner. She did not want there to be streamers all over their lovely food!

After they had eaten their three course marvellous dinner everybody kicked back in the livingroom. That was when Dedalus brought out the firecrackers and the party hats again. He had been drinking rather heavily during dinner and his nose was now quite red, so was his own fathers, Dudley noticed. He thought to himself that this could turn out to be quite interesting actually. Ax and Dedalus pulled the first firecracker and "BOOM" out came a whole bunch of confetti, party streamers and an old ladys bonnet together with a wizarding chess game. Dedalus laughed out loudly and put the bonnet on. Dudley almost pissed his pants laughing so hard because Dedalus looked like an old crone in that hat. Wishing dearly he had brought his camera with him or that his cell-phone had more battery so he could take a picture of him in the hat. Then Hestia and Dudley pulled another one, and the same BOOM came out of it together with the same amount of confetti and streamers. This time it contained a music box with a ballerina dancing inside it and a whole lot of sweets from that Honeydukes shop from Hogsmeade. Dudley emmediately started to dig in on the sweets. The ballerina inside the music box was not a ballerina like you see them in the muggele-childrens music boxes. Dedalus told him that this was a bewitched Cornish Pixie. Dudley thought it looked quite angry in the eyes, even though it smiled and danced inside the lid. Dudley laughed and thought it looked pathetic. The last cracker they had, Dedalus managed to persuade Vernon and Petunia to pull. Dudley never thought his father would ever agree to it, but there he was and he actually did pull the cracker with his mom. With the last BOOM they had even more confetti and a tiny witch on her broomstick flying in circles around their heads and laughing at them in a shrilly voice. Vernon actually laughed at it and did nothing to stop it at all. Dudley was rather dumbstruck with that and he thought he was going to faint from the shock about his father. They all laughed so hard at seeing Vernons reaction to the witch that they had trouble stopping. Dudley also thought his father really must have come a long way from the first day they arrived at the Bee Hive, unless all of this was the alcohol talking. Wich also might be a fair obtion.

The truth was that Vernon did not remember much of what had happened after dinner that night at all. He only remembered that they had a lot of fun and that Dudley had a really good time. You see, Vernon had been drinking quite heavily out of the brandy bottle Ax had provided for them in addition to the ale they had had during the dinner. The next day he had a bit of a hang over actually, so he stayed in bed until twelve o´clock. The entire house had been properly restored to its normal state by the time he got up. All of the confetti and the witch and the ballerina was long gone. The bonnet however, Dedalus had put on a peg in his room and he chuckled everytime he looked at it. It had been quite a night to remember he thought.

As for the wizarding chess that had come out of the cracker, Ax thought he would like to try and get young Dudley interested in. He sat him down one evening at the beginning of january and Dedalus told him about all the rules and how to command his players. Vernon were in the livingroom with them at the moment and he told them all he had been playing a little chess in his youth, so he actually would like to help Dudley out. The only thing was that theese chessmen were alive, and they all started to argue with Vernon whenever he tried to make Dudley send them into a hazardous spot. Vernon offcourse had not listened when Ax had told Dudley about them beeing alive, so he yelped and jumped to his feet before he started yelling at Dedalus about why he did not warn him of this freakishly enchanted thing! Dudley however, told him to get a grip and shut up about every little thing that was magic. He would have to become used to it somehow, he said. Besides Vernon knew that the chessgame came out of the firecracker they had cracked on newyears eve, so he must comprehend that the possibility of magic beeing present was there?! The truth was that Vernon still did not remember very much from that evening. Allthough he did not dare admit this to his son. Dudley told him that if he wanted to help him he would have to shut up about all the magic and think of it as an advanced videogame or something. Vernon sat himself down again, still a little apprehensive though, but tried his best to act normal. And after a couple of moves he had helped Dudley take the place of one of Dedalus' pawns an the chessman who took it, took out a knife to Dedalus's pawn and killed it. Dudley thought it was cool and the chessmen he was using cheered him on for the next move. Vernon did not quite approve of this though, however he said nothing as he would like to spend some time with Dudley now he had the chance. So he stayed and helped him play the game. They lost the first round ofcourse, because Dedalus really was a great player, and he was used to the chessmen becoming alive and killing eachother. Dudley and Vernon was distraught with it and did not have full concentration on the game at all. However, when they played it again. The second time around they had become a little more used to the live chessmen, so they did not do quite so many silly misstakes. They did loose again, but then Dedalus was rather good at chess so that was in a way expected. As there was nothing much for them to do outside in the cold, they might as well improve their chess games they all agreed on. Therefore they kept playing chess most of that day.

Vernon actually took Dudleys place at the chessboard when Dudley had had enough chess and went upstairs again to his videogame. This was how they spent their first days of the year. Dudley reflected upon his parenst, and his own journey with magic. He could still hardly believe his mother working together with a house elf like that. But he also liked that his father actually did not mind the living chessboard. That must only mean that he did not mind it all that much. In addition, he was now handeling the owls all by himself. So Dudley found the Dursley family had come quite a long way regarding magic theese days.


	44. The Leaky Cauldron

At the end of february Dedalus needed to take a trip to London to carry out an important errand at Flourish and Blotts in Diagon Alley for the book he was writing. Besides he was really looking forward leave the Bee Hive for a couple of hours. He was also planning to meet up with Mundungus Fletcher to catch up on what was what in the wizarding world that the Wireless and Ax´s paintings did not tell them. In addition Ax told him that he wanted to try out a potion he had heard about on the wireless some time ago, it would give some extra protein and vitamines to the vegetables come spring, so they might grow even bigger and better. Dig was against it, he told him that if it seemed like it would be too good to be true, it usually was. Anyway, Dedalus had got his instructions from Ax to buy it anyway.

Dedalus and Mundungus had agreed to meet up after Dedalus had finished his business in Diagon Alley at the Leaky Cauldron as it was nice and public. The both of them figured they where more unlikely to be overheard there than out in the street of Diagon Alley. They greeted each other and sat down in a booth with a tankard of ale each to exchange all sorts of general news. Well, it was mostly Mundungus whom told the news since he was the one living in London and actually had the opportunity to keep up with everything. Besides of all the scheeming he did for himself, he told Dedalus about all the turmoils going on at Hogwarts with Snape and his Death Eater cronies. He told him that they kept punishing people for simply having an opinion theese days. He also told him about a rumour he had heard regarding Harry and one of his friends. They had almost been caught by You-Know-Who on christmas eve. He would not say who had told him this information though. Dedalus knew that Mundungus had friends on both sides, so it could easily have been a drunk person from the other side who had let their tounge slip. Not many people knew that Mundungus had a knack for remembering things quite clearly, no matter how drunk he might appear to be. Mundungus also told him about the Weasly twins' everlasting courage with their shop in Diagon Alley, and of their latest joke inventions against the Dark Lord. Then there were all the dissapearances and murderes going on up and down the country.

When Mundungus had finished telling everything he knew, he wanted to know where ever it was Dedalus was hiding himself at the moment. He told him that he had heard a rumour that he and Hestia Jones were hiding the only relatives Harry Potter had left to him. Dedalus' anger rose to his cheeks and asked him from whomever he had heard such nonsense?! However Mundungus raised his hands in dissuasion and told him to calm himself down and explaind to him that he had just been guessing it all. He said he had tried to visit Dedalus at his place several times, without success. Besides, Dedalus had not told him where he had been hiding out lately or anything. Someone from the order had even let sip that he was together with Hestia Jones and what would he possible be doing together with her if it was not something important for the Order?! He had done the rest of the math for himself.

Still angry at Mundungus for guessing his hideout correctly, and a little worried that he himself had revealed too much by his reaction, Dedalus told him that it did not matter to Mundungus or anyone else where he was hiding, nor with whom. He firmly told Mundungus that he would better not repeat any of his silly ideas to anyone else in case somebody was stupid enough to believe in it. Mundungus told him to chill and not to worry about anything. He would not say anything he promised. Dedalus content with his old friends answer changed the subject to the Ministrys latest politics, and none of them touched the subject between them again.

Unfortunately for the two of them Travis Goyle was sitting in the booth right behind them, hidden behind a black burqa. He had overheard everything that had been said between the two of them for the last hour or so. He knew that Mundungus Fletcher was a ratty little man whom he himself never had trusted. However, every now and then Mundungus managed to slip an interesting thing or two without himself beeing any the wiser. He knew that both Mundungus and Dedalus was in that stupid Order of Dumbledores. Therefore, when he had seen them sitting together in the bar that day he thought he might be able to pick up some nice tip or other, that he could pass on to The Dark Lord for his own gain or something.

Neverthless, Travis wanted to be quite certain about any information he gained before even considering conveying anything to Him, or to anyone else from the old gang for that matter. However, he did send a patronus charm to his friend Muncharr Flint. He had not been accepted into their inner circle quite yet, and that made him a little less dangerous to himself if anything went wrong with any plan he might have. Travis had told him to bring a friend of his along to the Leaky Cauldron as soon as possible. It was always an advantage to be at least two or three men against any wizard theese days. If only to keep an intimidating appearance towards people in general. Though Goyle thought theese two cronies would not be much of a challenge for any of them. He also knew that Flint desperately had wanted to take revenge on that Hestia Jones woman ever since he escaped Azkaban. If it really was true that Dedalus was with her, Flint might have his chance to avenge himself that day.

Just as Mundungus and Dedalus were starting their last pints of ale, Muncharr and his burly friend entered the bar. Dedalus did not know Muncharr Flint by looks at all so he did not react to anything unusual at all when he entered the bar. Seeing as there were all kinds of people and creatures at the Leaky Cauldron. However theese days it was not usual for the Diagon Alley to have many visitors at all, and the bar was emptier than it normaly would be at this day of the hour. People did not seem to want to hang around for a long time anymore, and Dedalus figured it probably was fear that kept them away. Beeing cooped up at the Bee Hive all this time he had not imagined that the wizarding community would have changed this much since he last had visited the Diagon Alley. Nevertheless, it still was a nice distraction from the Bee Hive, Dedalus thought.

Goyle removed his burqa, so that Flint could find him and the two men sat down in the booth together with him and they started to talk together in damped voices. They wanted to make sure that Dedalus actually were hiding together with Hestia Jones for sure. They also needed to know if the two of them indeed were sheltering Harry Potters relatives. That could become a great bonus for them. Goyle and Flint had somewhat different motives to be interested in theese news. Goyles motivation was to become the Dark Lords highest praised soldier. If he was the one who found the relatives of Harry Potter and brought them to the Dark Lord he knew that it would be a great, great honour to him. Perhaps they could be able to make a nice new trap for that stupid Harry Potter-brat to fall into. Goyle knew that something like this had worked once before when the Dark Lord had made the plans, so why not try it again. Besides, Travis wanted to prove that he had the ability to think up something along those lines for himself. Also, it had become something of a competition between his fellow Death Eater friends to make out some kind of a heroic plan, or do anything at all to make the Dark Lord impressed and pleased with them. Things had not gone quite as planned for him lately and he really needed to prove himself to him. Somehow they all seemed to suffer for eachothers mistakes theese days. That Lestrange bitch seemed to always win the highest bloody prize of beeing the most clever and dedicated to Him, and he, Travis Goyle, had just about had enough of it.

Flint on his part were simply interested in getting his revenge on that Hestia Jones wench! She was not to send him to Azkaban unpunished! How he had suffered in that prison cell he would very much like for her to experience herself if he could help it. Those Dementors had nearly broken him down. They had stretched his mind to the outer point of his entire existence, and he swore the day he escaped to take his revenge on her, and a cruel revenge it was going to be as well. He would hunt her down for the rest of his life if he had to. He had not been rescued by the Dark Lord himself either, as so many others of his followers had been. He had been forced to wait for stupid Travis Goyle to work his magic with the magical law inforcement, and that had taken quite too long a time for his taste. Seeing as Goyle was a bit of a no-brainer at anything exept from perhaps looking a bit scary if he wanted to. Flint wasn't sure he could even trust his so called friend Goyle anymore, because he seemed to only be interested in seeking out fame and glory from his old master. Even though Muncharr himself really wanted to become a Death Eater, he knew he had his own priorities in this matter. Nevertheless, the two of them needed the other in this matter.

If Goyle handed him Hestia Jones that day, he would be quite satisfied with him after all. However, they needed to make sure the connection between their different targets and Dedalus Diggle were accurate before even concidering making an attack on him. Therefore, they decided to take on Mundungus Fletcher first, for a little interrogation of sorts. The both of them concidered him the weakest link out of the two of the men. When Mundungus Fletcher stepped into the mens restroom only a short while later, they had their opportunity. Flint told his burly friend to stand guard outside the door and prevent people from entering.

The mens restroom was empty except from their target, wich made things alot easier for them. Goyle put a muffilato charm around the room so that nobody would hear any noise coming from that room as they interrogated their victim.

Mundungus was doing his business at the urinal, when Goyle came up from behind him and put his wand tip, not too gently, on his throat. Then he asked him without ceremony, if Diggle was hiding the Dursley family!? Mundungus yelped and cried "wha?! ". Goyle simply replied "you heard me!" and demanded him to answer the question. Mundungus responded with a muffled "Idonnow", and "'e wouldn´say". Flint impatiently interrupted them and asked if Mundungus himself thought that Diggle was hiding the Dursleys then?! And perhaps if Hestia Jones were in hiding togehter with him?! Mundungus did not answer at all this time. Therefore Flint told the room in general that perhaps he needed a little more persuation. He informed him that he actually were quite accomplised with the Crusiatus Curse and that it had been a little while since he had practiced it on anybody. If Mundungus wanted, he could easily become his next target. That, unfortunately, did loosen up Mundunguses tounge. He said he thought Diggle did hide the Dursleys with Hestia Jones, but he could not say for sure. He hurridly added that he did not have any idea where on earth they hid them in any case. Flint did not believe that at all, so he cried "Crusio" and Mundungus fell to the bathroom floor and started to twist and scream from the top of his lunges. Flint kept him at it for a while, until Goyle lazily told him to stop it, or he wouldn't be able to tell them anything at all. Flint lifted the curse off him and repeated the question. Mundungus now sobbed and cried out in panic that he did not know anything. Flint was about to curse him again, however, his time Goyle stopped him and said he believed him to not know anything more. He thought to himself that Mundungus might come in handy later sometime, seeing as he was on the edge of the law most of the time. Then he added; "Who would trust stupid old Mundungus with anything this important anyway?!". "Well, we can always find out whereabout they are hidden by ourselves", repeated Flint as he grinned maliciously at Mundungus. They left him there lying on the floor, sobbing hard and shaking all over. Mundungus was feeling immensly horrible about himself and what he had so easily revealed to them. He wanted to get up quickly and run out into the bar again to warn off his dear old friend. Only he had a hard time even breathing from the Curse. The two men left the restroom and returned to the bar.

Dedalus was still sitting in their booth reading the last Daily Prophet. He and Mundungus were just about to take their leave, and he was now looking forward to head back to the Bee Hive. He had become uneasy beeing out so opely in public, the mood amongst the magical community was not a good one. He knew they were happier alltogheter at the Bee Hive where they were isolated from all of this gloom and fear. Even though he had grown weary of it in his eager to visit London again.

Mundungus sure took his time in there, he thought, just as he turned around to look at the bathroom door and saw a rather burly man standing outside it as if he was guarding it or something. The next second two other vicious looking men stepped out of the rest room and the third one joined them as they all steered their feet towards his booth.

He suddenly recognized Travis Goyle amongst them. With a huge jolt Dedalus remembered Hestias fight the last time she had met him. Dedalus got up and headed for the back door as fast as he could. He entered the Leaky Cauldrons back yard, withdrew his wand and dissapparated as quickly as he possibly could. However, he realized at once that he was not alone in the apparition. Both Travis Goyle and his burly friends had tagged along. Unfotunataly Dedalus had completely panicked and apparated right back into the Bee Hives protected sphere. Hestia and he had made a waterproof plan to always apparate into someplace different first to make sure nobody was attached or following them in any way as they travelled. Only when they were quite sure they were safe and alone, they were to return to the Bee Hive. However, he had completely forgot himself in the distress and panick, and he knew he now had messed up everything! They had landed right outside the garden fence, but inside the protected sphere of the Bee Hive. Dedalus tried to make it right by dissapparating again as soon as he landed, but unfortunately they were ready for him. Two of the men pinned him to the ground and held him tightly so that he could not move let alone disapparate. His wand had slipped away from him as he had fallen to the ground, and he saw Travis Goyle stepping into the Bee Hive garden. Dedalus panicked even more and struggled as best he could to get free, and somehow he managed to get a hold of his wand again. He gave it a quick flick and sent a patronous into the house to at least warn the others off. He had to pay for that with a couple of hard boots in the stomach. One of the blows were so hard it made him pass out for a little while.

Inside the house Hestia was the one to recieve the patronous. She hardly caught what it said but she knew it was from Dealus and understood that he was in danger. Then she thought she understood the word "garden" for some reason. She gasped and startled for a second, then she looked out the window and to her great fear noticed Travis Goyle walking up the path towards the house! She summoned Cookie, Dig and Ax and pointed out to the garden. She quietly signalled to them to get ready for a fight and to remove the Dursleys into the dungeons to the room of requirement. Ax had no problems to get Dudley and Petunia down there. He then fetched Poppy and told her to take care of the Dursleys and little Bumble.

Cookie brought Dig with her to persuade Vernon to go in hiding with his family. However he was convinced that he could take on a couple of stupid intruders if Cookie could do it. However Dig told him this could be really dangerous for him and his family, they did not want anybody in the world to know that the Dursleys really was hiding at the Bee Hive and then blow their safety cover. If anybody spotted a muggle there the Death Eaters would know for sure, and perhaps even send over the Chief Lord himself to capture and torture them. Vernon was in his study upstairs at the time and he had a fairly good view overlooking the garden. Luckily, one glance through the window and he finally realized that this was not a laughing matter. He could see Hestia out there in full battle with another grown man and things was already getting rough. Vernon realized that there would be absolutely nothing he would be able to do out there, and he did not want to blow their cover and the safety theese people had provided for them after all. Diggle and Ax were nowhere to be seen. Vernon started to fear that the intruders had already gone into the house, he felt panick rise through his vains and agreed to hide in the dungeons with his family. Before he knew what had happened Cookie had taken him on sidealong-apparation downstairs to the others. He had only blinked and he suddenly was somewhere else. Vernon did not like that much at all, the entire room was spinning and he violently vomited as soon as they had landed, he was actually too dizzy to make any complaint for once. Poppy took care of the sick and it was gone almost before it had landed on the floor. She and Petunia made Vernon lay down on a coach and gave him a glass of brandy for a pick-me-up.

This time the Room of Requirement had presented them with a fully equipped appartement, it contained three bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a livingroom. It had bookshelves filled to the brim with books and several different cardboard games to present them with a distraction from their thoughts on what was going on upstairs and outside in the garden. However, they all simply sat around the different chairs and sofas as if they were in a trance, listening for dangerous sounds. They were all scared wittless that somebody would find them down there and torture and kill them one by one. They all kept imagining that the worst was about to happen to them. They did not even know how many of the bad people had showed up, or if the worst man of all the wizards actually were there in the house. They had not been able to check anything out before Ax and Cookie had removed them to the dungeons. Dudley was sitting together with his mother on one of the sofas. She was holding him tight all the time as if he was about to dissapear out of thin air. Dudley kept remembering those Dementors and all the horror they had been putting him through. He kept reliving that night in his head. Only after what felt like an hour he revived from his trance like state and then he felt ever so thankful towards Ax for having this secret room. Ax had told Dudley that if somebody was inside the room nobody from the outside would get in because of the enchantment. So Dudley really ought to feel quite safe. But he kept imagining what he would do if someone actually managed to find them somehow, he had been practicing his boxing, so he thought perhaps that would come in handy in some way if it ever came to that.

Poppy were hiding there with them and were to be their protection if necessary. Dudley knew she was a great fighter, but he did not know how many of them were up there. Then they suddenly noticed that little Bumble was not there with them. He was supposed to be down there with them as well, however he seemed to have managed to slip through their fingers without anyone noticing it. Poppy was uttrely devastated. Her baby brother and her had a strong bond, and she loved him dearly. She knew he was rather reckless though, and knew that he would have loved to be a part of a real wizarding fight someday. He probably had wanted to at least be able to see the fight from inside the house. She only hoped that he would not be stupid enough to really participate. Petunia tried her best to comfort her and said that he probably only had gone upstairs to hide somewhere. Cookie had sealed the door after they all were securely taken into the room. Then she and Ax had headed upstairs again to help the others out with the fight. Poppy only hoped Bumble would manage to stay out of trouble, and find a good hiding place somewhere else in the house. They all agreed there was nothing they could do for him at the moment and they all simply had to hope for the best.

This had been a lovely and rather warm winters day before any of this happened. The sun had been up all day to make it quite nice to stay outside, even for the bees. Dedalus had apparated right next to one of the bee hives by the gate. The one that looked like a huge grey boulder from the outside. Peter and some of his friends had just returned to their hive, and had not even removed their clothes when he heard that there was some strange commotion going on outside that was not supposed to be there. He took a peek outside and understood at once that they had intruders. He quickly summoned his best bee soldiers and in an instant they were ready to attack. They were quite an impressive sight; fifty odd angry bees in the size of little birds flying in formation like a sting. All of them were ready to die for their cause as they attacced Muncharr Flint and the burly man as they were kicking Dedalus into unconciousness on the ground. Peter shouted "Cowards" at them for beeing two against one person who was lying on the ground! The bees attacked and attacked utill the burly man had had enough and got away from Dedalus. He yelled and stumbled and tried to get away from them all. Finally he fell to the ground howling with pain and trying to cover his head. He seemed to be allergic to bee stings so he was lying there clutching his incredible swollen face, not able to move at all from the pain.

Munchar Flint, however, did not give up that easily. He tried to hex every bee he could with his wand and about ten of them ended up sacrificing their lives. Peter was not one of them though. He managed to sting his target several times. Muncharrs skin was tougher, seeing as he was partly troll, so nothing the bees did to him seemed to make any huge impact on him at all when Dig, the house elf, suddenly showed up from thin air, and gave them a hand in fighting off Mucncharr Flint. He tried to hex Flint with the house elves own magic wich was not easy for humans to evade. Still Muncharr managed to block Dig and doged his hex.

Munchcarr had never had any liking for theese wretched house elves his entire life. By the looks of this one, he was even a freed elf, wich was a great discrase to the elves in general he knew. Muncharr hexed him with all his best curses as he shouted insulting words and namecallings at him. Even an Avada Kedavra curse was sent in Digs way. Dig, however, was alot faster than Muncharr though. He was also a lot smaller, and that made him quite a tiny target, wich was a great advantage for Dig. He soon understood that this wizard was a truly hateful man and Dig now ended up batteling for his life as Dedalus slowly came around again aided by Peter and some of his friends. Dedalus coughed and spat some blood out of his mouth, he had bit his cheeck when he had been kicked in the stomach. Otherwise he found everything else of his body intact but bruised. He glanced over at Dig and were impressed with his magical skills, even thogh he could see that he had his work cut out for him with Flint. Still, it gave Dedalus another second to catch his breath before entering the battle for real. Dedalus was determined that he would do anything in his power to keep his friends from harm by correcting his terrible misstake of beeing the one bringing theese men there. Muncharr growled at them and fought them both singlehadedly. He had finally spotted his real target, Hestia Jones, fighting with Goyle. So the bitch really was there and Mundungus had actually been guessing right for once. Muncharr was eager to start torturing her before sending her to either Azkaban or hell. He would decide on wich one later when he had his chance.

Peter commanded his troops over to help Hestia after the burly man had fallen to the ground, and they had made sure Dedalus was allright. Hestia truly had a rough fight with Goyle and she was getting afraid she was going to loose the battle. He was after all a proper Death Eater and had obviously learned a few tricks from his master. Suddenly she found that she had help from the bees. They attacked Travis Goyle too from several angles at a time. This gave Hestia the time to shift her position and catch her breath a second before attacking him again. He was not allergic to their sting, however they caught him off guard, and he had to change his position and his tactics to be able to defend himself from them. He now had a bunch of bird-sized bees and an acomplished witch to battle. It made him furious to realize he was outnumbered by such a stupid team of opponents.

Cookie and Ax had entered the garden to join the fight. The Burly man who had been so badly stung by the bees had somehow managed to get on his feet again and was roaring in pain and fury. He was charging towards them nearly blinded by his swollen bee-stung face. He was deadly furious and obviously determined to do some harm to them all. He wildly hexed everything around him, friend or foe. Then he stumbled and almost fell over an empty bucket that by chance was lying on the lawn, and it made him rage around even more like a lunatic. He had not seen nor anticipated old Ax with his shovel coming towards him in full frontal attack. Ax hit the burly man hard around the head with his shovel, the man spun around himself and fell to the ground completely knocked out.

Little Bumble had actually seen it all happen, and came running out of the house cheering Ax on for his nice move. He was so proud of himself to have managed to sneak out of the dungeons and up into the house again. He really just wanted to participate in the fight. He thought this was cool, and he somehow craved the action and anticipation all of this created. He looked upon himself as quite brave enough to be joining them. (He had secretly been hoping to himself that something like this was going to happen, so that he could prove to them all that he was a brave little elf, tough enough to participate in grown-up stuff.) When he had seen what Ax had done to the burly man. He immediately decided he would join him, ran up to them and instantly magicked up some ropes to bind the fainted man. Ax was shocked to see little Bumble out there in the garden next to him, and shouted for him to return to the house. However, Ax knew his little friend very well indeed. He knew he would not budge an instant if he had gone to theese lengths to participate. Therefore he made sure he had removed the fainted wizards wand, just in case. Then he checked if the ropes was well tied around the man before the two of them left him there lying on the ground.

Ax was ushering an unwillingly Bumble back into the house again when a streak of white light passed him and hit Bumble in the small of his back. Bumble gave a little gasp, then toppled over and fell to the ground. Ax saw it all happening in slow motion and yelled "NOO!!" It was Goyle whom had sent the hex as a revenge for actually managing to take down one of them. Ax hurried to pick little Bumble up from off the ground and carried him inside the house. He laid him gently down on the coach in the livingroom and Ax knelt beside him to examin the damages. He saw that Bumble were bleeding faintly from his temple and his face was quite pale. He almost looked as if he was dead or dying. He could still feel a pulse on him though, and he was breathing faintly. He bound his head with a table cloth lying on the nearest table to make the bleeding stop. But Ax did not know what more he could do for him at the moment. He had to try and help the others outside in the garden before anyone else of his friends got harmed, otherwise the Death Eaters could even manage to get inside the house and find the Dursleys. As he picked himself up off the floor, he felt a huge lump in his throught and tears was pressing on behind his eyes as he sensed his fury rise inside him as he went back outside. He turned all this anger towards Travis Goyle for hurting his precious little friend in such a cowardly way like that. He grabbed the first thing he could get a hold of as he passed through the front door, gave a heartbreaking loud roar and threw his weapon straight towards Goyles face. The weapon turned out to be his sharpest felling axe. Goyle had not expected anything like this at all, so he only just managed to jerk his head away before the axe hit him. It did not hit his forhead as Ax had intended it to though. It hit his right arm just below the shoulder. Ax had incidentally thrown his axe so hard that he actually chopped off Travis Goyles entire arm. Goyle fell backwards towards the ground from the blow and hit the back of his head towards a huge stone ledge and passed out as a result of it. Hestia and Ax ran over to him to check if he was dead or if he would survive. He had been knocked out by the fall, but they imagined he was going to be all right concidering the loss of his arm. Hestia quickly conjured up a bottle and put Essence of Dittanny on his arm that made the bleeding of his shoulder stop, then she magicked up bandages to bind up his shoulder-tump so it would not get infected and then she checked the back of his head if that was badly damaged. She made it stop bleeding and bandaged his head as well before she conjured up a rope and bound his knees tightly together with his other arm into a bundle. After that she made sure she wiped his memory properly so that he would not remember where they were or even think of coming back again in search of them.

Ax was rather shocked about what had he had just done and had fallen to the ground on his knees right next to Goyle. He had never in his life been a violent man, but there was something new that had rised in him seeing the innocent baby elf beeing hit in the back with a curse by a grown man without any feeling or concience for him beeing only a child at all. Perhaps Goyle had hexed Bumble simply because he was a house elf. Ax knew that some humans could have a messed-up idea towards house elves in general, and that they did not think house elves were good enough for anything but work. Nor that they had any feelings or personalities as a human beeing, therefore they often treated them poorly. At that moment when Ax had rose from dear Bumbles side in the lilvingroom, he had felt like nothing else mattered to him in the world than to take some kind of a revenge for his little friend and his sacrifice.

Travis Goyle had lost his right arm where the Death Eater mark was sitting. Ax saw it for the first time in his life, and it was sitting on the hand that he had chopped off. It was lying on the ground next to Goyle as if it had finally freed itself from his master and was now going to get a life on its own. Ax first felt ashamed of his spontanious act of anger. However when he looked at the death mark and realized what kind of man this really was he actually felt a little surge of pride that he, of all people, had helped taking down a real Death Eater. Hestia had healed Goyle well enought to know that he would survive. Even though she had wiped his memory he most likely would be furious when he woke up to find his right arm gone. It was after all his wand-hand and he would not be likely to do much harm with his left arm, at least not for some time yet. Hestia had collected his wand and they would need to decide what to do with him before he woke up again. Ax decided he would stand guard over him with his shovel firmly in his hands in case he did wake up again and tried any funny busines. While Hestia moved along to help Dedalus and Dig.

The danger was not over yet. The fight between Muncharr Flint, Dig and Dedalus was still going on and it turned out to be an exhausting one. Muncharr now realized that he was the only one left standing from the three who had set out on the mission. He felt that he was fighting for his life as if the devil himself was cheering him on. The bees had watched the incident with Bumble and were totally devastated and paralysed. Ax ordered them all to keep themselves out of harms reach. Not many of the curses Dedalus and Dig sent towards Flint seemed to made any impact on him.

Hestia joined the fight and Cookie went inside the house to check up on little Bumble. This time Flint truly got his work cut out for him. Hestia knew that they simply had to exhaust him and then he would become an easy target. However, it seemed like his resentment towards Hestia for managing to capture him on that moore and sending him to Azkaban had made him lunatic and it kept him going for a lot longer than the last time they had met. Perhaps the prison visit had changed him even more for the worse. Hestia could clearly see his resentment and loathe towards her. He yelled at her that she was his to finish. More than once did he send a Crusiatus Curse towards her, and once even an Avada Kedavra Curse. Fortunately she managed to block them all, and seeing as they were three against one he did not get many chances to try.

What none of them had anticipated was a mothers wrath and grief over her innocent baby boy beeing seriously cursed and lying lifeless in the livingroom. Suddenly Cookie was standing right infront of Flint with the pair of angriest eyes he had ever seen in his entire life. In a split second she had sent a hex towards him that made him freeze and float in midair as if gravity and time had seized to function in the sphere that surrounded his body. He was obviously trying to break free from it, but the charm was strong and holding him there as if he was clutched in a firm grip. He was only able to move his eyes properly, and when he looked between them they could clearly see his surprise and fear for what had happened to him. This gave them a second to pause, when Hestia acted on impulse and shouted "Obliviate". She wanted him to forget why he was even there, more than anything else. However, the combination of the two curses seemed to become a rather dangerous one for the reciever. The fact that it had been a house elf who had hexed him with a rather peculiar spell and then for a witch to curse him with another, made the combination a bit too strong for a human to handle. Cookie tried to lift her spell from him, but she was not able to do so. Something had gone wrong. Muncharr had a rather vacant expression in his eyes as if he did not know who he was or what he was doing. Dig helped Cookie and together they managed to lift the elfish spell from him.

Hestia removed his wand from his hand as soon as they managed to remove the freezing spell. She was a little afraid that Muncharr was only acting, and that he would strike back at them as soon as he was freed. Only he did not do anything harmful. He fell to the ground on his behind like a toddler who was not able to walk properely, then he started to babble like a one year old. He did not seem to recognize any of them at all, as he started to pull grass out of the turf and put it in his mouth. He was drooling a lot as if he did not have any control of his saliva, and then he looked up at them from the ground and giggled. It was more a nasty sight than a pretty one of a babys with his gnarled face and croocked teeths. They all looked at him in disgust. Cookie figured that the combination of the two curses had collided in his brain so that he now had been reversed into childhood again. They decided that Flint would no longer be of any harm to them anymore from the state that he was in. This would be a harsh enough punishment for him for trying to trespass their sanctuary and bring harm to them all. They decided to send him to st. Mungos Hospital in case he was any danger to himself or other people in some way or other. Hestia took care of that. She returned after only a minute or so. By that time she had left him inside the front doors of St. Mungos Hospital in London, dissapparated and apparated to the outskirts of Aberdeen, before she had returned to the Bee Hive.

They also wanted to move the other two intruders from the Bee Hive and thy decided to move Travis Goyle and the Burly Man to that same Scottish moore where Hestia had duelled Muncharr the last time, only a little further north, in case anyone from the wrong side was watching the place. This way nobody would know where they had been and who they had met. Hestia and Dedalus took care of one person each, since they both were rather heavy. When they arrived at the moor they also wiped the Burly mans memory as a safety precaution, so that he did not remember anything from the Bee Hive and he wouldn't come back for them looking for any kind of revenge. He probably would not remember much seeing as he hardly had had any eyesight left to him behind his swollen face. They both reconed that he was in far too much pain to even have noticed anything that had been going on in the garden that evening. Nevertheless Hestia wiped his memory, and was glad to see that her spell had not gone totally wrong like it had on Flint. This time Dedalus put up a warning flaire before he sent a patronus to the magical law inforcement using Goyles wand. They were beeing as cautious as they possibly could be this time. They wanted to leave it up to the aurors if they would send them both to Azkaban or st. Mungos. After all Travis Goyle was generally known to be one of the Death Eaters. Goyles cut off arm was also with them, so that the ones finding him could have the evidence that he was in fact a Death Eater.

Back at the Bee Hive however, the two of them didn not want to rest quite yet, Hestia and Diggle went around the Bee Hive protected fence to make sure their sanctuary were still intact, they did what they could to reinforce the protections. Dedalus was rather badly hurt in the ribs and had pains in his stomach from the blows he had suffered. Hestia had got a few cuts and bruises as well, but nothing really serious had happened to any of them. When they finally returned to the Bee Hive house they went inside the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of Essence of Dittany and dabbed their cuts and bruises. Before they entered the livingroom to join the others at Bumbles side. All of this only took a couple of minutes though, even though it felt like an entire day had passed since the fight had started.

When they entered the livingroom however, they found that Dig was not very pleased with his wife for cursing a human so severely like she had done. He told her that she was supposed to serve humans, not harm them. He himself had only been using some protection spells on the intruders. However, Ax defended Cookie and said that in his eyes she had been serving her master in the very best way she could possibly have done. He was immensely proud of her, he told him. She had participated in ending the fight and theese men would have caused a lot more damage to them if they had continued fighthing them for much longer than any of them would be able to do now. Ax added that the both of them had done very well and he was really pleased with them. He added that theese men might even have brought their boss along if they got the chance, and that would have been the end for all the inhabitants of the Bee Hive. He then forbade Dig to scold Cookie for showing her feelings towards the men hurting her baby boy. Hestia and Dedalus supported Ax and finally they agreed that they all had done well fighting them off like they had in the end.

Except for Dedalus, he kept on appologising over and over for panicking and bringing them there in the first place. Hestia simply said that now it was over she felt that they had learned something crusial about all of the inhabitants of the Bee Hive. That was how great a team they all were and how quickly and smoothly it all had worked to take the Dursleys into safety, and the fine team spirit they all had showed during the fight.

Dig and Cookie had returned to the house as quick as they could, after Hestia had removed Flint from the garden, to try and revive little Bumble and nurse him back to life. They did not yet fully know how badly he was hurt, however they knew that there were a possibility that he could get some permanent damages. Cookie fetched all her herbs and potions from her storage downstairs. She gave him all the potions she thought could be of any help. Dig even had some special healing magic in his hands, so he put them on each side of Bumbles head and mumbled something quietly to himself. He had used to do this on sick animals earlier and that had always helped them somehow. However, he had never tried it on anybody this badly hurt, so he was not sure it would work this time. Cookie silently cried onto Bumbles chest as she held his hand sitting on the floor next to him. After an hour or so Dig decided they would move him downstairs to his own bed. But Ax insisted he should be with them all because they were all concerned for him and they all wanted to be there when he woke up. The others agreed he could stay in the livingroom until it was time for them all to retire for the evening, then they could remove him to his own bed.

Little Bumble was lying on the sofa barely breathing. His head was not bleading anymore. Ax apologised over and over again to Cookie and Dig for not preventing this to happen. However they both agreed that this could could not have been Ax' fault. Bumble had sneaked out of the house himself to join the fight. He had not concidered the danger or his own irresponibility. They had told him theese things many times earlier, and tried to make him become a little more responsible. However Bumble was an opinionated young fellow and he had never experienced anything but kindness from humans before, thus he would not know that there might be people who did not think so highly of house elves as Ax did. Ax himself defended Bumble, saying that was after all only a child and he could not know how dangerous it would turn out to become. Besides, he was on his way back inside the house when he got hit in the back. Ax still felt his anger rise towards Travis Goyle as he talked about it. How could a grown man possibly do something like that to a little child, human or elf?! Ax was not sorry he had cut off Goyles arm as a result of it. It had been his wand-arm and they figured that he would not be able to do much fighting from then on. With the Dark Mark on the hand that had been cut off Hestia told them that he might not even be welcome back into their precious little Death Eater-circle again without it.

Peter had reported to Ax what had happened with his bee-troops, after Hestia had taken off with Flint, and told him about the bees whom actually had lost their lives. Ax had gathered them all up from the ground and carried them inside the house to see if there were anything they could do for them at all. Peter told him that if it had happened on a more favourable time of the year they might have been a little quicker still in their flying alltoghether. But seeing as it was winter the bees was not in their best shape and they were all a little bit slow in motion, even though it had been a warm and sunny day outside. Ax realized that there was nothing he could do for the dead bees and asked Peter how he would like for them to be buried. The bees had their own little cematory in the garden behind Ax' house. Usually they only died out of very old age those days. Therefore the two of them decided they would like to make a monument to theese fallen soldiers in a special part of this cematory. They would put up a fence around them and put the graves around it in a circle like a hexagon to symbolize the inside of a bee hive. They decided it would be done the next day, after they knew something more about little Bumbles condition.

Around the time when everybody who had praticipated in the fight had all gathered around Bumble in the livingroom the Dursleys and Poppy returend from the dungeons. The sight that met them there were schocking and Poppys worst fear had almost been fulfilled. They were all rather curious to hear about what had happened. But then they were devastated to see little Bumble lyying on the sofa so badly hurt. Poppy kneeled by his side and cried her heart out feeling utterly guilty that she had not remebered to check if he was there with her before the door was locked. The Dursleys were astonished to hear what Ax had done to one of the Death Eaters and that Cookie had been cursing a man called Flint, whom they knew had been fighting Hestia earlier, and had been sent to Azkaban for it that autumn. They had been certain it was going to be Hestia and Dedalus who would do the main protecting of them all. They had looked upon the house elves and Ax more as company than protectors all the time. However, this proved them all wrong once and for all, and they would not underestimate the protecting abilities of either Ax, Cookie or any of the house elves ever again.

Poor Poppy was utterly devastated. Nothing anybody said to her would comfort her. She felt she had the full responsibility for Bumble beeing hurt, so she sneaked away into the kitchen to punish herself. Fortunately Petunia had entered the kitchen before her, to see if she could find something light for them to eat at all. And she just stepped out of the pantry carrying some cheese and ham when she found Poppy slamming her head against the hot stove. Petunia had never in her life witnessed anybody trying to punish themselves so she screamed out rather loudly at the sight of her. Then she ran towards Poppy and tried her best to stop her. However, Poppy were stronger than Petunia realized, and tore herself from Petunias grasp to continue hitting her head against the stove. She was getting all bruised and burned at the same time. She had already started to get blisters from the heat coming from the stove all over her face. Petunia shouted for help and suddenly Ax was in the doorway. He ran up to them and helped Petunia pull Poppy away from there. Dedalus entered right behind him and he conjured up a bottle of Essence of Dittany and some cotton and started dabbing the potion on to her blisters. Poppy had given up er quest then and was sitting on Ax' lap silently crying. Ax was rocking her from side to side hushing her to make things well again. He told her that nothing good would come from her punishing herself because of something she had no power over, and it was no more her fault than anybody else in there, let alone his own he said. Dedalus told them both that it was all his fault for panicking, and nobody else were to take any blame for anything. So the three of them ended up comforting eachother on the matter. Petunia had finished some sandwiches by the time they had all calmed down a little and Poppy had returned to normal. Petunia sent them back into the living room, then she brought a huge tray of food for them and urged them all to try to eat something. Allthough they all obeyed, the sandwiches somehow felt too dry to chew and nothing they ate tasted any good that evening because of all that had been going on that day. They were sitting in silence not saying a word to eachother, not even Vernon. All you could hear for a long time in that room besides the grandfather clock ticking away, was an occational sigh and someone shifting in their seat every now and then.

About four hours after the attack little Bumble started to stir a little. Dig placed his hands on his shoulders to give him some more healing by his own strength and energy. Cookie was still knealing on the floor next to him holding both his hands. And Poppy was sitting at his feet stroking his legs with affection. Ax was standing behind Cookie looking down on him, hoping against all hope he would turn out to be ok. The Dursleys, Hestia and Dedalus felt like spectators of it all, sitting close by, watching and waiting for him to revive. Then he gave a weak sob, caught his breath as if he had been running, and opened his eyes wide open. He started to cry out loud emmediately, and everybody hurried to come closer and show him they were all there. He was obviously in deep pain, and Hestia hurried to bring Cookie some tears of the poppy for him to take the pain away. He cried and cried for almost half an hour, then he started to calm down a little. His breathing became calmer, and after a little while he fell asleep. Cookie had a bottle of Sleeping Draught to give him if he woke up again during the night. The best thing for him now would be to get a deep sleep. They all sighed, and hoped this was the worst part for him to go through. At this moment Cookie and Dig wanted to take him downstairs to his own bed, and perhaps they all could get a little rest. Petunias sandwiches was all they had managed to eat that evening, as none of them had any appetite for anything else. Not even Vernon. He kept thinking what if that had been his own little Dudley. They were sitting in the livingroom, not even bothering with the Wireless, just looking dead in front of them. They were all thinking how lucky they were after all. It could have gone a lot worse for all of them. The horrific thought of what if Bumble was not to be with them anymore, made them sigh every now and then. They all went to bed early, quite exhausted from the days events. Hoping that the next day would be a better one.


	45. Bumbles Recovery

About a week or two after the fight Bumble was up and about again. He had been in a lot of pain, and he did not bounce around like he had used to do. He seemed alltogether a little altered. He had always been such a happy little child, and now he had become more sombre all together. Cookie kept saying he would snap out of it soon enough, but Poppy doubted it. She had opened her heart to Dudley and Peter one afternoon when they had been down on the dungeons practising Dudleys boxing. Dudley felt that it would be quite a shame if Bumble did not get back to his normal self again. He had always liked this young elf alot. He had lifted their spirit more than once at the Bee Hive. The last two weeks had not been fun at all, everybody was walking on eggshells to see if he would recover completely or not.   
  
The first couple of days he slept alot, and was only together with his family. His two elder brothers had even popped by the day after it had happened to check on him. They tried their best to console their mother whom ofcourse was devastated. She had even left it up to Petunia to do most of the cooking in the kitchens. Petunia did not mind that much at all, beeing quite used to that kitchen by then. However she did notice that it was totally different to do the work in there without Cookies magic. It took her twice as long as usual with a wooden burner and no hot water running from at tap. She did have some help from Poppy though, but she did not have the interest nor the inclination to work with food. She was messy and clumsy and more of an annoyance to Petunia than a real help. She did help her magically with the heavyest stuff though. Like bringing wood and water into the kitchen. She also helped her with the heavy lifting. Allthough having dropped the whole dish-washing sink onto the floor once and breaking all of the fine china of Ax's Petunia had enough. She managed to stay calm however, beeing sensitive to the fact that Poppy was grieving her brother too. Nevertheless she told Poppy that she wanted her to leave the kithcen in her own care from then on. Petunia figured that she would rather spend the entire day in there alone than only a couple of hours during the day with Poppy. She was totally different from her mother and not at all as fun working with.

The next day however Bumble was awake and eating like he had done before the incident. Therefore Cookie felt she could leave his side more and returned to the kitchen. Petunia was ever so happy to have her by her side again, however she did not want to be too happy about it towards her, however she did make her a nice little cake that the two of them sat down in the kithcen when she returned and ate together. Petunia wanted her to talk to her about how she felt and lift some of her anxieties regarding Bumble to her. Petunia had never truly ha a friend of her own, but the two of them knew from that day that they had bonded alot over this horrible accident.

Bumble was out of bed more and more for each day that passed, but he did not smile to them at all. Poppy tried to entertain him with just about everything she knew he normally would find funny. One day Poppy and Dudley planned on taking Bumble to see the goats. He favoured the goats above all the other animals on the farm. Probably because they were as playful and jolly as he was, or what he had used to be. They had a baby kid that was his best friend named Tiny, and the goat was over the moon to see him again. It tried to knock him over in exitement. But Poppy told the baby goat to take it easy on him. It did not understand her however so it tried to make him run along with him and simply jumped around like it usually did. In the end it probably understood that everything was not as it normally was with Bumble though, because it calmed down and laid down next to where he was sitting and simply put its head on his lap as if it was a dog. Bumble was sitting patting its head for a little while, and the whole thing made Poppy cry. She had never seen her little brother like this and it really scared her. Never in a million years would her little brother just sit down and pat this litle goat, but here they were, patting the goat called Tiny. Seeing the goats did lift Bumbles spirit a little bit though, however it did not last very long until Bumble said he was tired and Poppy brought him back into the house. She was unconsolable after this encounter. She was afraid he would stay like this forever and that she never would get her little brother back to his normal state.   
  
Almost a month passed and Bumble was much in the same downcasted mood. His mother only rejoiced that his life had not been taken away from them alltogether. Poppy and Cookie had a little row about it when Poppy voiced that this state he was in almost was as bad as loosing him alltoghether. Cookie could not believe what she had said, and yelled at her for beeing so insensitive. Poppy was sent to her room as a consequense for this statement. However an hour or so later her mother came to talk to her. She admitted that she kind of understood what she meant but she as his mother, could never, ever imagine a greater horror than to loose one of her children from this world. Poppy did understand her and together they cried a little and was done with the whole affair.   
  
What happened during the following weekend then, did both exite and marvel the two of them. Dudley Dursley had asked Dedalus if he would please be so kind as to order something from Weasleys's Wizard Wheezes. He had heard of it on the radio and wanted to have a closer look at it himself. He did not really know what it was, or if it would work. But the two of them placed the order and the next day it was delivered by owl post. It was a trick wand, and Dudley wanted to give it to little Bumble to see if this could make him smile again. To everybodys big surprise this actually did make Bumble smile again. He did not laugh as he normally would, but he did smile and giggle a little, and they all cheered him on and was happy that he was not totally lost to them after all. Poppy was so happy to see him smile again that she could not stop singing. This was also something Bumble liked to do so he even tried a little tune himself. But he was exhausted from all the joy so he needed to relax again. This however, made them all confident that he certainly would recover if they simply gave him the time he needed. Dudley become something of the hero of the day at that point.  
  
Half a year later little Bumble was fully recovered, he did not have to sleep so much and his cheerfulness was almost back to normal. He could, however be found sitting alone with the baby goat Tiny, just stroking it and not talking or sinigng or anything. But nobody wanted to bother him with it, he had experienced something very traumatic, and there was nothing any of them could do about it. Bumble knew he had learned his lesson not to interfere with grown up stuff anymore. If his parents would give him an order to stay out of something potentially dangerous he would do so without hesitation.


	46. Tobacco leaves

Vernon liked the mornings at the Bee Hive alot actually. He usually ate breakfast together with his family solely, because the rest of the house hold there liked to be up and about alot earlier. Vernon had no idea why on earth they wanted to get up all that early. However, he did not mind being left alone with his family for breakfast time, since they rarely ever did that anymore back at home. After breakfast he went upstairs to his office working for a couple of hours, then it was time for lunch and to cath up with the other inhabitants of the Bee Hive. Despite himself Vernon had grown rather interested in what went on in the Magical news-world. Not that he would ever reveal any of this to any living soul, but he quite liked Dedalus interpretation of the news readers, and that magical radio of his. Vernon felt like he did not have much choice in the matter anyways, as he was living in the middle of this magical world at the moment. Besides, he had always liked to listen to the news, and since this was the only kind of entertainment they seemed to be able to provide for them it was actually allright by him.

Vernon had oppressed his knowledge about this magical world for so many years that he still had a hard time truly believing in it, even though he was surrounded by it every day at the moment. However, seeing that his wife and son was beeing so serious about it all he found himself cornered and forced to believe that it truely existed as well. Besides, he had seen what both that Hestia woman could do, and Dedalus too. Even though he was a little more sensitive towards him regarding magic it seemed.

After his lunches Vernon often as not did not have much to do in his study, therefore he stretched himself out on the coach, in their first floor parolour reading a newspaper. Usually he fell asleep during his long break. Somehow the news his papers brought him turned out to be quite unsatisfactory those days. Allthough he knew that Dedalus would bring him more detailed information on it later in the afternon if those wizards had had anything to do with it. Therefore he did not bother with what they called the "Muggle news" too much, ecxept he kind of liked to be informed about it beforehand. In addition, he had actually startet to guess what truly had happened in the news to himself before Dedalus and Hestia revealed it to them. He had managed to guess correctly once or twice, however usually he was wrong. That made him not want to reveal the little secret game he had invented for himself to anybody. He did not want to seem totally ridiculous after all.

One afternoon Vernon found he was quite irritable, he had recieved some news from the office that rather bothered him. He felt he needed to blow some steam off his bad temper on someone. Once again this Steven person had dodged his little misstakes, and had managed to look good to the main office. The only joy Vernon got out of it was that he imagined that it actually reflected good upon himself as well. Except, he could not help feeling a little snubbed about it, and now he wanted to yell at somebody because of it. He usually vented it out on those useless peoplee at work, and perhaps in particular that imbicile secretary of his. She truly was his favourite subject, except from Harry Potter ofcourse. Here at the Bee Hive, he did not really have anyone to blow his steam off on. If he did not count that Hestia woman, he would like to tell her off something awful. However, he did not want to be hexed into a hedgehog or somtehing silly, so he had refrained to do so for months.

This particular rainy and dull february day Dudley finally had managed to grow and dry his own tobacco leafs. He had been rolling some of it all up into one fat cigarette, and was just about to light it up when his father happened upon him. Ax had been the one to help him grow his tobacco and now Dudley had grown sick of waiting for Ax helping him with the pipe, and he had decided to roll some of it up into a sigarette. He had promised Ax not to try out his new pipe he had recieved from him at christmas before the two of them tried it out together. Dudley, however, had made Peter swear that the two of them should keep the sigarette as their own little secret between them. Peter knew that this kind of tobacco was not going to be harmful at all, like the content of Ax´s pipe had been. Therefore he had allowed Dudley to do this. Other than that he was not particularly happy that his new friend wanted to keep up with such a unhealthy habit, seeing as he was a young man under 20 years.

Vernon happened to stumble upon Dudley the very moment he was lighting up his sigarette, and schokingly Vernon understood what his son was about to do. Vernon instinctively yelled his head off about it to his son. However, as Dudley now no longer was a child, nor had he ever liked to be told off by anyone, Vernon got a proper fight from him. Dudley yelled at his father that he had been smoking for ages and that he could do so if he wanted to. Besides, this whas his very own tobacco leaf and he could do with it as he wanted to! Vernon shouted back that he perhaps had forgotten what had happened to him when he had tried Ax´s pipe back in October. Besides, he was a boxing champion! He should rather be working out than sitting around the livingroom smoking sigarettes! They went on like this for about half an hour or so.

Poor Petunia had heard their loud voices from the kitchen and had hurried into the livingroom. Once more she was witnessing the two men in her life fight about something silly. This time she did not know what to do with them at all. She was simply standing in the middle of the livingroom with a cloth in her hands gaping at the two of them, unsure if she was going to interfere this time or not. She wanted to side with Dudley since she loved him so much, except Vernon had a good point. Besides, she was actually rather shocked herself that her little Diddy was engaged in smoking. She realized that her own little Diddydunkkins truly had turned into a grown-up man without her quite noticing it. She also reflected on the thought that perhaps all of this smoking and fighting with his father was a part of her darling boy growing up and becoming a man of his own opinions. She actually felt that Dudley would have to decide for himself what was best for him to do, that was the way she had always let him do things during all of his life anyways.

She could not help feeling that Dudley still was her little baby boy in her heart. She was studying him up and down seeing him properly for the first time since he had tried on his first Smeltings uniform back in the days. She remembered that she already back then had felt he was such a young grown up man. As much as she now wanted him to be a little baby boy, she could clearly see that he was not anymore. He was seventeen years old, and she could tell that he had even grown a little taller than his father. In addition, she could see that he certainly were alot more muscly than his father had ever been. Dudley had actually been working out alot through the last couple of years, and all of his puppy-fat were gone by now. It dawned upon Petunia that Dudley had about the same hight as her own father. Looking even closer at Dudley he actually resembled her own uncle a little. Petunia had never connected those particular dots before. She had not been thinking about her uncle since she was a little girl. He had died very young and her own father had never stopped mourning his dear older brother. He had kept a photograph of him in their livingroom when she had been a little girl. Petunia never really had thought about him much before this very day. She noticed that Dudley held his posture alot like he had done on that picture. He had been standing there quite proud in his military uniform, with a puffed out chest somehow. Comparing her son to her husband she noticed for the first time how dissimilar the two of them really were by looks. Ofcours Dudley had always been a spitting image of his father, except he really was not anymore. He had grown alot taller than Vernon. The Dursley side of the family had always been stout and plump, and so had Dudley been all his life as well. Except not anymore she quite clearly could tell. Petunia had quite forgotten that the two men were in a fight and that she was concidering if she was going to interfere with it or not. Finally she decided not to do anything about it, and left the room. However, she kept contemplating the similarities between her own uncle and her son for quite a while. She was happy Dudley did not look anything like her own father at least. Allthough now she was happy that she had passed on some of her finer genes onto her darling son somehow. Ofcourse, she loved him regardless, however this new discovery she had just made she could not let go of.

Vernon also noticed that his son had grown into a man that afternoon, however in a different manner. Right then and there in the middle of his fight with his son, and to his great horror, he realized that his own son would easily win the battle if he, Vernon, was stupid enough to take him on. Vernon truly felt he saw Dudley for what felt like the first time in years. Realization upon realization dawned upon him that Dudley was not a child anymore. Vernon could see it all quite clear now. His son had turned out to be a strongheaded young man. Vernon in earnest, was incredably proud of him. Nevertheless, he himself did not like to be contradicted by anyone. Well, he knew that Dudley had always had his own strong opinions about things, as he should. Except the two of them had always agreed upon most things in life he had felt. Except from that fight he had with him earlier that fall of course. Now Dudely had decided to grow up and have his own opinions, and his sons opinions shockingly differed from his own.

In the end Vernon let Dudley win this fight. Vernon felt like he himself had aged something like ten years over the past half hour arguing with Dudley. Besides, he simply could not find the energy to fight Dudley on this. What did it matter if Dudley smoked cigarrettes anyways? He remembered himself at seventeen, he had already been smoking for at least two years, and he had started to test out alcohol, however he had stopped smoking and drinking anything but sherry and brandy after he had met Petunia. He had thought that she was such a fine young Lady that he easily could give that up for her. He still did think she was a Lady whom deserved a gentleman. Also he wanted to present himself to still be a fine husband to her, and gentlemen in his eyes did not drink beer nor smoke sigarettes, only the occational cigar would be acceptable. In addition he did not like sigarettes very much, he had basically done it because his little gang of friends had a little pier pressure going on, and he had never liked to be seen upon as a coward.

That night Vernon Dursley did not sleep very well at all. He was lying awake thinking about his own life and how fast it really all had passed by. His own little boy was now all grown up and were opposing his own father. What a milestone that day became to him. He felt sad, old and worn out all at the same time somehow. Thinking about his fight with Dudley, nothing could have prepared him for feeling like this. His own son was now standing in a totally different light to him. Opposing him just like Harry always had done. It was not a pleasant feeling. Even though he could not stop loving Dudley simply because of a little fight like this. It was just that he felt like he could not be the one his son would look up to for help and support anymore. It might be just as likely that it would be the other way around from now on.

Vernon, however, felt he was much too young to become an old man already, therefore, he decided he would start getting some more fresh air and start exercising a little from then on. What Vernon had not paid any attention to was that he had actually gained quite some weight during his stay at the Bee Hive, due to all the excellent food he was provided with every day. Therefore he tried his little excursion of walk in the fresh air for half an hour the next day, wich ended in him beeing quite cold and upset. Therefore he delayed his idea of this unecessarry exercising untill spring at least


	47. Outdoorsy Dudley

They had not had much snow during the winter at all, except from around christmas, and that had dissapeared again after only one week or so. Dudley had enjoyed it so much that he was very dissapointed the day it had started to rain and the snow slowly but surely had melted away. Dudley had even started to enjoy spending time outside when it was raining. He truly had been influenced by Poppy, Bumble and Peter during the last couple of months. Nowadays he almost did not even notice if it was rainy and windy at all. He stayed outside for a couple of hours every day and loved it. When he was not in his schoolroom together with Hestia that is.  
  
Dudley had been exploring the grounds behind the house one day together with Peter. The two of them had come across an enormous beech tree standing there that Dudley wanted to check out some more. At that moment a seventeen year old Dudley had managed to loose most of his bodyfat. He had trained his upper arms enough to reasonably easy manage to climb the tree. He was a little worried that it wouldn't hold his weight, but it all went very well indeed. He climbed the tree high enough to get a proper view of the scenery beneath him. He could see the entire valley that stretched out under him. He could also see bits of the house and garden they lived in. Dudley thought that it looked magnificent. He had never been allowed to climb trees when he was a little boy, besides he probably was too fat to even attempt it. Climbing had always benn his cousin Harrys thing. Now he could fully understand why he liked it so much. Well, he thought, better having found that out late in his life than never. Peter suggested that they should build a treehut of sorts in that tree. Dudley liked that idea very much indeed, up until he understood that he would be the one building it. However he refused to do it when he figured that out, as he could barely hold on to the branches as it was.

Peter then suggested they asked if Poppy would like to help them out. She could perhaps even do it by magic. This was a great idea Dudley thought. They fetched her and asked her if she would help. She said yes in a heartbeat. In one swift second she had conjured up a hut with wooden steps poking out on the side of the tree for them to walk on. She had put ropes up as bannisters all the way up and around the balcony outside the hut. They ascended through a trapdoor in the floor. And as they emerged they were standing on a balcony high above the ground with a great view of the scenery below them. There she had made a wooden railing for them to hold on to and right behind them she had conjured up the cosiest tree hut you could ever imagine. They entered through the tiny door and Dudley was shocked to see the inside of it. She had enlargened the room to become a fully sized room with vaulted cealing, windows and even a fireplace. She had furnished it all with a squashy sofa and two matching armchairs. There were a table at each end of them. And a bookshelf was raised against the wall containing different kind of books and other kind of cool stuff Dudley thought. Amongst other things he found several binoculars in addition to paper, a quill and ink. There were plenty of knitted blankets in different pale colours sitting in one of the shelves. All together Dudley thought that this hut very much looked like it would be Poppys own place. This was exactly her style of decoration. Dudely had never visited her part of the house though. Ax had told him that the house elves should have their private place to themselves. Now Dudley at least had a feeling of what she liked to surround herself with. He also was a little reminded of the gazeebo she liked to decorate during the summer. Dudley liked the tree house a lot.   
  
The three of them ended up staying up there for quite a while that afternoon. It was like a place for them to stay without any parents or grown ups at all. It felt kind of liberating. Poppy conjured up a cup of hot coacoa each for them and they enjoyed the scenery until it started to get dark. Then they went back into the main house and told the others all about it. Hestia was very sceptical to it all because they had been on the outskirts of the Bee Hives protected border. However, Poppy reassured her that she had been casting a protection- and hiding- spell on it, so nobody would find it if they came looking. Hestia became quite intrigued by this and praised Poppy for it. This made Poppy quite pleased with herself for thinking of maintaining the security. Hestia did check it out herself the next day and put all sorts of spells on it to make it all safe for them all to use.

The weather had become somewhat warmer during the last couple of weeks, and the easter holidays were soon to be upon them all. Dudley wondered if he could persuade that Steven person in his fathers office to buy him some easter eggs from a normal groceryshop. He had some help from Poppy to sendt the letter by owl and Steven replied with sending him an entire basket full of chockolate easter-eggs. Dudley had a great idea for what he wanted to do with the eggs.  
On the evening of Easter Saturday Dudley went outside in the garden alone for a while to hide his easter eggs. He wanted Poppy, Peter and Bumble to have a search for them. He was going to let them in on a muggle childs game for Easter called "find the egg". He climbed the stairs of the beech tree and found some neat hiding places for all of the eggs in there. Dudley had never been a very imaginative boy, so what he concidered great hidingplace were rather quite obvious to anyone else. Allthough, never mind that now, it really was a nice gesture of young Dudley all the same. One of his motives for this little game of his were actually to cheer up little Bumble, and anything was better than nothing on that score. When he had finished hiding them he went back into the house whisteling to himself and feeling rather pleased about the entire idea.   
  
After breakfast the next day he invited Peter, Poppy and Bumble to join him in their tree hut. He told them to search for the Easter-eggs and soon enough they found all of them. Then they all sat down on the couches and ate the eggs. None of the inhabitants of the Bee Hive had ever tasted Muggle cockolate-eggs before, and Bumble went over the moon about it. He even giggled and waved his toes, wich always was a good sign. Poppy too giggled and laughed in delight. She started singing and jumped around in joy because of this little delightful had happened to her. They all ate themselves full and they started to feel a little queasy from all of the sugar. Then they stopped and just dozed off on their couches. Bumble wanted to know what else Dudley usually did during his Easter Holidays. He told them that he usually left school for the Holidays and came back home to his parents. They simply ate alot of delicious food and just caught up with what was what, and that was it usually. He could hang around with his friends and they would probably just hang around on corners smoking or making fun of people passing by. Suddenly he missed his friends alot. He voiced his thoughts to them and they were sympathetic towards him. Allthought there were nothing any of them could do Dudley felt grateful they were there. He had not been able to voice his true feelings to many people in his life. Dudley had always have to conceal from his friends with all the business with Harry beeing a wizard all through the years. Here he could talk openly to them about both worlds, and he felt it was a huge lift off his shoulders. It even made him want to stay there together with them forever.


	48. Resurfacing

One evening at the end of april all the residents of the Bee Hive were sitting in the livingroom listening to the wireless as usual. It was this fellow Rodent on again who told them that Harry Potter had emerged to the public surface once more and was now safe and sound with his friends. One of Rodents own relations had invited him and his friends to stay with them. So all the speculations in the Magical community, about Harry beeing dead could now bee squashed once and for all.

He told them that he and his two best friends had brought with them a house elf, amongst others. The elf, unfortunately, had died in Harrys arms. There seemed to to have been nothing anyone could do to save him. Harry had grieved over the house elf as he had been a good friend of his. Then Harry had buried the elf himself. Rodent announced that Harrys goodness for all living creatures should be a guideline for everybody in the magical community. "Be nice to eachother" was the general encouragement.

He also rapported that even though Harry and his friends were all safe and sound at the moment, it seemed to his relations as if they might just have escaped from inprisonment somewhere, because they all looked liked they had been in a fight or something. However, neither Harry nor his friends would tell anybody anything of their encounters what so ever. Even though they probably knew that the entire magical community were dying to know whatever they were up to.

Harry and his friends had also brought with them mr Olivander, the wandmaker from Diagon Alley. He had been known to have been missing for quite some time, and rumour had it that Olivander had even been in the Chief Death Eaters own imprisonment. Rodent then told them that People now could feel free to speculate all they wanted if Harry too had been in the Chief Death Eaters clutches, but somehow managing to escape him once again. He added to them that "There appears to be no stopping what so ever of our young hero". He encouraged everybody to simply settle for the joy of Harry and his friends beeing safe and sound at the moment and perhaps have a silent celebration of Harry still beeing alive and with them all.

They all had been listening intently to the radio. Even Vernon had held his toungue during the announcement. When the programme was over they all got up from their chairs and sofas, jumping for joy and hugging eachother. Well, everybody at the Bee Hive resident, exept for Vernon. He looked a little dumbstruck and overwhemed. In his own mind he himself thought he would certainy refuse to celebrate Harry Potter no matter how much of a hero everyone else thought him to be. He never had liked his nephew much and he certainly would not start that evening!

Ax then told everybody that this required a special toast and a celebration. He went over to the cabinet where he kept his good brandy, poured a healthy glass to each of them, lifted his own glass high up in the air and said "To Harry and his friends". Even Vernon drank to him, however he told himself he would only do so because Ax's brandy simply was too delicious not to accept. Besides, the others somehow seemed to expect everybody in the livingroom to participate in the rejoice of Harry Potters daft accomplishment of still beeing alive. He for one could not understand what all the fuss was about. Although he did not protest or say anything against it. Even though in his opinion he still found Harry a huge annoyance and a danger to himself and his family.

It was rather late in the afternoon, nevertheless that did not matter a jolt, because Ax, Hestia and Dedalus desperately wanted to throw a party right there and then for Harrys resrufacing and the joy that he was safe and sound. Vernon, however, rapidly drained his glass of brandy and excused himself that he needed to go to bed because he had a big day the next day with Steven trying to bring him a huge order of drills. He simply needed his sleep if he were to be sharp and have his witts about him the next day. He knew in his own mind exaclty where he would draw his line with this ridiculusness regarding Harry Potter!

Petunia participated in their immediate joy and the drink as well. Even though she had changed her views on her nephew and the Magical community alot during their stay here, she still somehow wanted to stand by her husband and support his feelings in everything. Therefore she went to bed early too. Only her thoughts differred strongly from Vernons on the topic of Harry. She was sincerely happy to hear that he was alive and that he now were safe and sound. She had grown a little proud and and even found that she had aquired some kind of fondness for her nephew in secret, during the time they had spent there. She thought to herself how could she not become inflicted with pride, hearing about all the praise of him from everybody who surrounded her. She had found both Hestia, Dedalus and Ax somewhat respecable and intelligent people, even though their looks was rather too eccentric for her liking. Petunia and Vernon never did discuss Harry or any of their views on their new friends at all anymore. Because deep down they both knew the others feelings on the matter, and seeing as they did not agree on the matter, the subject was better left untouched.

Even though Vernon and Petunia would not participate in the party, it did not stop the rest of the household from celabrating. Even the two house elf sons who lived and worked at Hogwarts school showed up at their party. They could inform them that it was the house elf called Dobby whom had died in Harrys arms. Dudley had imagined that it had been that dirty old croacking thing called Kreacher that had landed in their livingroom two summers ago, whom had died. Apparently it was not. This was that other house elf that Poppy and Bumble had told him all about. The one who had made that pudding blow up in their livingroom, years and years ago back in Privet Drive when Harry had only been a year at Hogwarts. Dobby seemed to have been a quite nice elf from Poppy and her brothers acount. Allthough, he was generally considered to be rather an oddball amongst most other house elfs. No ordinary house elf had a wish to live as a freed elf. Well, except from the ones at the Bee Hive though. Nevertheless, Dobby had been different, and Harry had been the one to free him. Dobby appeared to have been a good friend of Harrys for years. Because Harry had even visited him in the kitchens at Hogwarts once. Cork told them all about it. Dobby had been constantly talking about his friend Harry Potter the entire time he had been working there, up to a point that every other elf in the Castle was sick of hearing about Harry Potter. Button told them that now all the house elves at Hogwarts regretted their disbelief in their close relationship and actually had held some sort of a memorial for him as well.

Whenever a house elf died, Button told Dudley, their magical spirit turned up at the place where their home had been. That made the house elves at Hogwarts be alerted about his death before anybody else knew. Dobby would now probably become something of a hero to the rest of the house elfs at Hogwarts ever since this announcement on the radio. No house elf had ever made it to the radio in the magical community before, even if it only was to announce their death.

Allthough house elves in general did not approve of any kind of attention to themselves, they tended to grow proud of any human beeing whom truly befriended them and it had just now been announced that Harry Potter had treated Dobby the house elf as an equal, and not many humans did show that much integrity when it came down to house elves in general.

Kreacher, the house elf Harry rightfully owned, had been a bitter old toad with more bile coming out of him about Harry than anyone would ever believe when he first had arrived at Hogwarts. That had changed completely during last summer though.

The House elves at Hogwarts were always granted a couple of weeks vacation, or some kind of leave to come and go as they pleased during the summer holidays, to visit friends or family. Every elf at Hogwarts knew that Kreacher had longed for his old and long lost mistress all through the first schoolyear he had worked there, and he was going to spend as much time as he possibly could in that empty old house, even though he was not sure he was entirely allowed to do so anymore. That was when Harry and his friends apparently had turned up, and Kracher then had decided he would like to stay there with them instead of returning to Hogwarts. Seeing as he belonged to Potter he was allowed to spend as much time with him as his master demanded. Still Kreacher had returned to Hogwarts in the beginning of september, and he would not tell anyone what had happened. However it must have been something drastical, because Kreacher had changed his mind completely about his master and was now utterly proud to be Harry Potters servant. Kreacher even looked differently, almost as if he had been reborn. He was clean, his toga were white and shiny and he had a bounce to his feet that differred strongly from before he had left for the summer. He had started to share Dobbys fan-intrerest in Harry. Allthough he did not run around the castle talking about him all the time like Dobby had done. They all simply knew he had somehow changed his mind about Harry. Dobby and Kreacher had actually become something close to friends during the last schoolyear because of their mutual interest in Harry. Kreacher had taken the news about Dobby dying that day very hard indeed.

The party in the Bee Hive livingroom continued up until late that evening. Ax had poured himself and Dedalus quite a few glasses of brandy, and they both became quite silly and red not their noses. The two house elf brothers Button and Cork did not drink more than one tiny little mouthful each since they, stricktly speaking, was on duty. However, they did talk alot though, and they were the life and soul of the party.

Dudely could not quite comprehend that the two of them could be this jolly when they had just lost a crewmember and a friend whom they now would be considering a hero from that day on. He pulled Poppy aside and asked her about it. She told him that when house elves died they usually only had a short moment of silence and then they were done with it. If the house elf had been working hard and done his duties to his master there would be nothing else he or she would be wanting, and therefore there was nothing to be sad about.

At the end of the evening the two elf brothers shook Dudleys hands for some reason he did not understand. Hestia later explained to him that they quite looked upon the Dursleys as the next best thing to Harry Potter himself. Seeing as he had blood relation to him. Dudley secretly quite liked that. Even though he was ashamed about his past conductions towards Harry. Nor did he have anything close to the same courage that Harry was in possesion of in any way. He also was a little apprehensive thinking about what the house elf brothers would say if they knew how poorly he and his family had been treating Harry during his childhood.

He did confide some of theese thoghts he had regarding Harry later on with Hestia though. However, she simply told him that he could not change the past in any way, allthough he could make sure he did something good with his future. Dudley did relax a little bit after that comment. He later found he was proud to think of the shaking of the hands with those house elf brothers as Harry Potters relative.


	49. The War!

A couple of weeks later they got an exeptionally curious message out of the Wireless. The announcement were that Harry and his two friends now had broke into Gringotts bank and managed to escape on a dragon! They had all three clearly been sighted leaving Diagon Alley riding a dragon out of the great hall of the bank. This made the entire Bee Hive startle. Why on earth would Harry Potter brake into a Gringotts vault?! He surely had money enough in his own vault!

This peace of information made Vernon particularely cheerful however. He laughed harder than anybody had seen him do, and repetedly said "I told you so!!". He announced to the room in general that he alone had always known that Harry Potter were just another rascal up to no good! His glee on the matter was obviously that here were proof that he was right all along. Everybody else at the Bee Hive had doubdted him the entire time they had been staying there. Now he had his justice, now they could not doubt him anymore! He had been right all along and nothing they said would ever change it! This semed to have cheered Vernon up so much that Ax wondered if he truly had lost his marbles. Vernon looked as if it was already his birthday and that this was finally the present he had been waiting for his entire life.

Vernons utter mirth did not last very long though, because the man on the wireless added that he thought it might have had something to do with Harry taking down You Know Who, in some way or other, and that this incredibly dangerous stunt must have been a part of something bigger. He told them that Harry even had brought with him a Goblin to carry out the break-in, he was one of the former guards of Gringotts. This piece of information made Hestia, Dedalus and Ax all look at Vernon with more discust and disbelief than they ever had done before. They all knew Vernon was a rather particular man, whom certainly were no fan of Harrys, however, they did not realize his hate for Harry were this deep within him. It was all any of them could do not to attack him all together. Dudley was about to shout at his father for beeing so utterly stupid when the wireless started to talk again and everybody wanted to hear some more.

The reporter announced that they had no idea where the Dragon had taken them, or if they had any means of controlling it at all. He also stated that it was a highly dangerous task to ride a dragon and he would not recomand it to anybody! The final conclusion was that Harry and his friends must have been desperate for an exit to unleach a bloody dragon for their escape. They had somehow dogded the heavily secured dungeons of the bank and the newsreader had heard from a secure sorce at Gringotts that they had managed to steal something from a vault as well. He did not know wich valut they had entered though, and it could not have been a huge item, or a pile of money or anything like that. Because they would have had to cling hard on to that Dragons back if they were not to fall of it.

He finally announced that this break-in somehow was a good thing simply because it had been Harry Potters doing. It was even concidered a rather brave thing to do by Harry and his friends up to a point. How on earth they had managed to pass the heavy security of the bank on their way inside the vaults nobody could understand. Nor could anyone understand how they had been able to walk down Diagon Alley undiscovered, it was all a mystery to the entire magical community. People of course could feel free to speculate all they wished upon the matter. Those who always had been rooting for Harry would be rejoicing in whatever his acchievement had been that day. They added that braking into Gringotts bank was not something they incouraged to do in general, and the fact that Harry had done it was counted for something differently than a common petty theft would have been. The reader in the Wireless said that if there were anybody who would do anything this dangerous without gaining to himself it would be Harry Potter.

Theese words were like a hard slap in the face to Vernon. He jumped out of his chair and shouted "NOO!! This is not right! He must be found and punished like a criminal!! He should be put to prison and left there to rot for the rest of his miserable life!!" This time Hestia had had enough of him. With a flick of her wand she gagged Vernon, and bound his hands and feets. She then threatened him with her wand that if he did not pipe down this hatred for his nephew she would send him to his bedroom like a child and he'd get no dinner for a week! She told him that her patience with him was now stretched to the limit and if he did not behave himself for the rest of his stay at the Bee Hive, she would not hesitate to turn him into a toad or a pincushion!

Ax broke them off, but he did not ask her to untie Vernon. He told Vernon that he would need to learn his lesson and shut up about his own feelings about his nephew. He said to him that they had all been happy to make sure he and his family were safe, but if this was Vernons way of repaying hem all, perhaps Vernon did not deserve their protection. Petunia got a little nervous at this point and excused her husbands behaviour for the first time of her life. She said that they were extremely thankful for the security they had been providing for them and she promised that Vernon would keep his mouth shut on the subject from then on. At this point Vernon was sweating like a pig and they could see he was quite scared of both Hestia and Ax. Not to mention the thought of beeing let loose outside into the real world again like a prey for all thoose dark wizards to hunt down freely. Therefore he nodded vigourusly to every word Petunia uttered. Neither did he want to be turned into a toad or a pincushion for the rest of their stay, so he promised himself he would shut up about all of it for his own safety. Hestia ungagged him and he excused himself and went upstairs to his study. He needed to be alone after this encounter. Privately still fuming a little on the matter.

Hestia, Ax and Dedalus also kept to themselves after this. They all were wanting to blow off some steam to eachother about the subject.

This left Dudley and his mother still sitting together in the livingroom. Petunia told her son under her breath that she was a little shocked that Vernon had uttered theese thoughts out loud beeing in the situation they actually were. She would have thought or hoped that Vernon had changed his mind about Harry seeing as they had been in this magical part of the world for so long. After all they had heard about all of Harrys achievements and all the dangerous situations he had been put through. Dudley agreed with his mother and saw his father in a different light now than he had ever done before in his life. He asked his mother why his father really hated Harry so much in the first place. She told him she thought it was because of Harrys father. He had behaved quite outragous towards him at their wedding, she said. Besides, Harry had never been afraid of Vernon, even as a child. He had always stood up against him as best as he could, and Vernon resented that.

Perhaps his father somehow, deep down, was a little afraid of Harry, Dudley thought. He also thought that his mother was right about all of theese things. He certainly knew that Harry were a brave young man by now, and he also thought his own father a little bit of a coward at the moment.

Only an hour or so after they had heard that Harry had broken into that bank they recieved more news on the wireless. Due to the uproar with Vernon, Ax had forgot to turn off the wireless. This time they had reports coming directly from Hogwarts School, saying Harry had returned to the school and that something big was apparenty about to go down. Every member from the Order of Pheonix were called in to join them in a fight. It was going to become nasty and it could become an open war between all the good people in the world with Harry Potter in their lead against the dark side. They would now fight against the darkest creatures i the world with Lord Voldemort in their lead. Come prepared for battle was the incouragement. People could now apparate straight into the Hogs Head pub in Hogmeade and Aberforth Dumbledore would be there to lead them through to a secret passage straight into Hogwarts. This made them all startle. Was this something of a trick from the dark side? But then, seconds later they recieved a partonus from Kingsley Shacklebolt saying if they wanted to stay put with the Dursleys he would understand, if not they were welcome to join him at Hogwarts. This made both Hestia and Dedalus jump to their feet. They hastily said their goodbyes to Ax, Petunia and Dudley, told them to say goodbye to Vernon and the house elf family. Then they suddenly were gone. What a change of moods they had gone through in the last couple of hours. Here they suddenly were, left to their own imagination of what really was going on out there. Ax decided he would leave the wireless on just in case some other news popped up or they recieved any sort of message about what was going down at Hogwarts.

Petunia went upstairs to tell Vernon about the latest news and they both soon returned downstairs again, both of them a little white in their faces. Vernon actually said he was sorry to Ax as he entered the room. Ax and Dudley had gathered all the inhabitants of the Bee Hive inside the livingroom. The house elf family were still debating if they too were to go to Hogwarts to fight together with their sons. Ax said that he would wish for them to stay with him and the Dursleys, however he would not refuse them if this was what they really wanted. They discussed it for a while longer but decided they would be most needed at the Bee Hive. Their place was there with their beloved master. Besides, somebody would need to protect Ax and the Dursleys if nessecary. If the dark side won they certainly would need all the protection they could provide. Besides, even though Bumble was on the mend from the last fight, they did not much like to experience anything like that with anybody else in their family. Their two sons living at Hogwarts were afte all of age and had been trained up to survive dangers and fights, so they decided they did not need to babysit them.

The silence in the house after Hestia and Dedalus had left was almost unbeareble. Vernon tried to make some kind of light conversation with them all, but nobody was up for it. Only when Petunia asked Ax what would happen if the dark side actually won they seemed to revive from their own thoughts and was intersted to talk at all. Ax looked at the elves before he answered and his expression was very grave indeed. He said that then all hope would be gone. Then they would probably be slaughtering Muggles like cattle. They would take over the world if given the chance, and spread horror and missery all over the earth. Nobody would ever feel safe again.

Petunias face went pale as a sheet. She held her hand up to her mouth and asked him that if Harry failed in his mission all this would happen?! Did really everything rest on her nephews small shoulders? She never really seemed to have completely comprehended any of this before that exact moment. It had all seemed to be simply some sort of a game, or something of their imagination. She very much knew that magic existed. She had always known that. However she never really had realized the significance of it all. This very moment she regretted her behaviour towards Harry through all those years. This was when she truly appreciated his importance to them all. She had only been acting as an evil aunt to him. She turned away and started to sob silently to herself. Vernon looked at her with incomprehension and a little disbelief. However he did not say anything. Dudley on the other hand knew exactly how she felt and went over to pat her hand. He told her that Harry would be all right. He said to her that he is not alone, that he would have his friends along with him, and now he would be at Hogwarts with all those other teachers to help him. Besides, Hestia and Dedalus would be there with him too. Theese words calmed Petunia down a little.

Ax handed her a small glass of brandy for her to calm her nerves a little.She accepted it and took a little sip from the glass. A few minutes later she asked Ax if he thought Harry stood a chance against that Dark Wizard at all. Ax told her in earnest that he truly did not know. He didn't know Harry personally so he would not know if he had the guts for it. Dudley immediately rose from his chair and told the room at large that he knew that Harry did have the guts for it! Dudley firmly believed in that! He told Ax about the encounter with the dementors a couple of years ago. He told him how Harry had fought them off singlehandedly. That seemed to impress Ax a little, and he nodded and said "Well, maybe he will manage to take the dark lord down." But then he added that Dudley needed to understand that this chief Lord was one of the most dangerous wizards in the entire world, and not many people would dare taking him on head to head. Ax told Dudley that Professor Albus Dumbledore had been the only one he ever really had feared, and Dumbledore was long dead by now. Ax only hoped that Dumbledore would have had the sense to have taught Harry everything that he himself knew about the Dark Lords weaknesses before he died. Perhaps that was what Harry had been doing all this year, training up for battle? Ax did not know. However, Dudley felt like he thought Harry would make it. He just had to make it!

The hours passed by like snails never leaving their spot. Sometimes they heard snippets of people shouting or wailing on the wireless, allthough they could barely make anything out of it. Vernon suggested really quietly to turn it off, because they all got more upset whenever they heard any kind of noise coming out of it. However Ax did not even give him a respond to that. Dudley and the house elves shook their heads in unison to let him know their opinion. There were nothing they could do but wait and listend. Petunia was white in her face all the time and she switched from sitting in her chair quite apathic, to walking restlessly back and forth on the floor. Ax sometimes joined her in her restless walk. He kept striding up and down the floor with his hands behind his back as if his pondering did not give him any rest at all. Only when they heard any kind of noise did they stop their pace, and everybody viligantly listened and even stopped breathing for a couple of seconds.

Then, finally, around eleven o'clock in the evening there were something quite audieble coming out of the Wireless. Voldemort had given them a brake in the fight and had demanded them all to deliver Harry to him. He only wanted Harry Potter, and nobody else. He had given them until midnight to hand him over. The reporter told them that they would all rather fight to the end than hand over their hero Harry. He were their only beacon of hope. If they betrayed Harry now who could they ever trust in the end? Therefore they considered this to simply be a pause in their fight for now.

They announced on the wireless that at the moment they were gathering all their wounded and dead in the great hall of Hogwarts. That there had been great losses on both sides, but that Harry were still amongst them and fighting. The report was made from one of Harrys close friends from school, Neville Longbottom. A deep sigh of relief went through the room. Even though they knew the fight was not over yet. Harry were still alive, and that said something. He had made it so far, he might make it yet.

They did not give them a list of names though, and Petunia really wanted to know if Hestia and Dedalus were allright. Nevertheless there would be nothing they could do if anything had happened to them anyways.

The hour before midnight felt as long as an entire year to the inhabitants of the Bee Hive. Dudley was sitting in his chair next to his mother. He was imagining what Hogwarts looked like. He had been told different bits about it from both Hestia and Dedalus, so he had managed to draw something of an image of it in his head some time ago now. Allthough this night his image of the school had changed. Now everything was in ruin, and burning, like in his old video games. Somehow he had managed to put in a tank on each side of a great wall and they had been been shooting at eachother untill the wall were left in ruins. In his head he also kept imagining warplanes, but they had somehow become alive and now resembled huge firespitting dragons. That was the reason everything in his head was burning. Dudleys conjecture did not stretch much further than to something such as that. His comprehension of things happening in his own head had always been helped along the way with images from tv or his videogames, so what a magical fight would look like, he had no idea what so ever.

Nobody spoke a word between them. Then, when the old grandfather clock struck twelve they had some antisipation towards the wireless, but nothing happened. There were no sound coming out of it. Ax had started to walk up and down the length of the room again. Rather faster than he had done earlier. They were all looking at him as if they were antisipating him to speak or do something. But nobody said anything. The hours stretched into the night, and Cookie finally brought them all a stack of sandwiches and juice from the kitchen. Vernon had fallen asleep on the couch, but every one else was sitting up straight and feeling wide awake. They were all still waiting for any kind of news. None of them had even the slightest thought of going to bed that night. Not even Vernon had suggested it. Even though he now was sleeping they knew that if they heard anything at all he would wake up again in an instant. They ate in silence. The only sounds they heard were Vernons heavily breathing and the huge old grandfather clock ticking its way as if everything was as it normally would be.

The light outside started to change from black to grey. A new day was about to begin. Birds was starting to sing as if nothing was going on in the world. Dudley was thinking about how strange all of that really was. The entire world of magic was in uproar, and the outcome of it would inflict on the rest of the world without anybody in the muggle world beeing any the wiser. Bestides, it was all up to his one month younger cousin Harry. How incredible strange it all seemed to him. Dudley started to think of his good friend Piers. He probably did not know anything of what was going on. For a minute there he envied him a little. How wonderful it would have been if he did not know about it. But he did know. And there were no use in pretending otherwise. Then he thought that if he had been at Smeltings he would not know about this wonderful place, he would not have met Peter whom he now was best friends with. Also he would have been totally ignorant of Harrys achievements. Almost, he thought. Almost. He knew about the Dementors he thought. He knew there existed magic in the world and he, like his mother, had known it all of his life. Dudley shook his head to rid himself of the thought of beeing somewhere else. There was no reason to think like that. He was at the Bee Hive now and actually he was rather happy about that. He was safe and sound, and only a witness to something horrible going on someplace else. The feeling of this war was certainly real enough though. The wireless, Ax and the house elves saw to that. Then again they lived in the magical world for real, and they probably knew more of the real consequenses than anyone in his family did. Or perhaps his mother knew? She certainly knew more about magic than he ever thought that she did. Dudley had kept her secret from his father, about her and Cookie working so seemlessly together in the kitchen.

Then Dudley started to think about tomorrow. What would happen tomorrow? If that dark wizard won, would they have to live downstairs in the room of requirement for the rest of their lives?

And what if Harry won? Would they be sent home tomorrow? He had become so accustomed to everything around the house and garden that he had forgot to concider that he probably was not going to be living there forever.

One hour after the daylight had broke through the night, they heard the message from the wireless; "VICTORY!! Harry had done it! He had killed Voldemort!" They got a recap of the nights events at Hogwarts, or as fully as one could expect. They were told that Harry had died at first, or so they all thought! But then he was not dead after all and had overpowered Voldemort alone in front of everybody. He had showed great calmness and bravery all through the fight, and he had even lectured Voldemort before he died. The most amazing thing was that Harry did not send the killing curse "Avada Kedavra" on him. Even though Voldemort had tried to kill Harry several times. Voldemorts own charm had simply backfired at him. Harry had only disarmed him and then Voldemort had accidenatlly killed himself. The entire thing had been amazing, and Harrys nerve was unbelivable, the man said.

The announcer on the wireless also told them that their losses had been great. They would all need to rest and take the time to remorse their dead friends and family members. Celebration would come later on. There was only one other announcement that needed to be declared and that was the name of their new Minister for Magic, and it was mr Kingsley Shacklebolt. This made Ax cheer out loud. He asked the Dursleys to please join him in his cheer and Dig suddenly showed up with a huge bottle of champagne. Ax opened it and they drank to Harrys victory. Even Vernon drank and seemed happy. It had been an incredible long night for them all and decided to go to bed and get some sleep.

Later in the afternoon his mother woke Dudley up and told him that they had prepared a nice dinner, and that they were going to celebrate into the night with fire crackers. So they did. Ax had a patronous from Hestia telling him that both she and Dedalus were going to be allright and that she would visit them in a couple of days to bring them back to Privet drive again. Dedalus, unfortunately would not be able to join them at all at the Bee Hive, since he was in St Mungos hospital with two broken legs and rather beaten to a pulp. The bones was regrowing though, however he had been through a rather tough ordeal, and his mind was a little out of sorts. He would be fine in time, he only needed some rest and time to heal.

It seemed like none of the Dursleys had given any departure much thought. Not even Vernon. He had become accustomed to sending owls every day, and not having to go in to the office every day.

Petunia started to think how she ever would manage cooking without Cookie again. And decided she would at least ask if she could copy down some of the recipies she kept in her cupboard.

Dudleys heart was torn. He was looking forward to use his video games and watching the television again, and meeting Piers and all his friends. On the other hand he did not want to leave this wonderful house and garden with all its lovely inhabitants. He knew he would miss each and every one of them. He already missed Hestia and Dedalus. He also understood that his life was now changed forever. He would never look at any news report the same way, he would never be able to hear about honey or bees without thinking of Peter. Poppy would be dearly missed as well, and he certainly would miss both Ax, Hestia and Dedalus. His heart was all broken over it. However knowing that they were allright and that his cousin Harry had managed to take down the worlds most dangerous dark wizard was such a great joy to him that he did not know what to do. He also knew that he was going to meet Hestia shortly, and he really looked forward to that. Still, he certainly did not want to leave the place.


	50. Departing the Bee Hive

Two days after Harry had won the war Ax recieved an owl from Hestia where she told them wich day she would return to the Bee Hive to bring the Dursleys back into "the real world". She did not have the time to return to the Bee Hive to stay with them just then, because there simply was too much for her to do in the Magical community. She was a part of a group of volunteers rebuilding Hogwarts back to its former state. The war had done quite a lot of damage to it. Besides, the matter of building the magical community back to its normal state was a little more paramount than hanging out with the Dursleys at the moment.

Hestia also had included a list of instructions to Dudley on what she would like for him to repeat from his schoolwork. Wich turned out to be just about everything he had learned during the previous school year. It was a good thing that they almost had finished all of the curriculum that Hestia had collected from Smeltings. She told him that she already had a plan made out for him so that he could sit his exams. She told him to study on his own for a few weeks until she could join him and then she would give him his exams. She had enclosed a strickt revising-plan for him to follow, with instructions for Petunia to keep an eye out on him for her. She told Petunia that she would like to come around Privet Drive within a few weeks for Dudleys exams. She assumed the Dursleys were all eager to return to their own home as soon as possible since the war was over. Seeing as the letter was adressed to Petunia, Hestia put the qutestion to her when she asked if it would be all right with them if she visited Privet Drive and stayed there for a week or so for Dudleys exams in the beginning of june. Petunia ofcourse, really was a little reluctant at first to have her visiting them back in Surrey. Admittedly Petunia had aquired a high esteem for Hestia during the year they had lived together at the Bee Hive. Nevertheless, she knew that Hestia really had proven herself to be an excellent tutor for her darling boy. She had been exactly what he had needed his entire life. Petunia knew he had been struggeling with the same issues that she herself had struggled with during her schooldays. Hestia also had shown great intelligence at handeling the dangerous situation she had landed in when she had visited Smeltings school. In additon she had played a vigorous role in the fight they had endured in february. Therefore she had in her private mind no objections to her visiting Privet Drive. However she was rather anxious about her appearance still. What would their neighbours say if they spotted her outside their house. Petunia desperately struggled with herself; it was quite a different matter for her to be seen together with Hestia outside in the real world with all of their neighbours watching. Hestia certainly did have a rather eccentric way of dressing in Petunias eyes. Allthough, it had been Petunias idea all together that Dudley had his final year of education, and the grades on his exsams happened to be the most important result her darling son would recieve, she really could not have any objections to it. Besides, all the trouble Hestia had gone through aquiring the material she needed when she visited Smeltings school, how could Petunia possibly refuse her to visit them even if it was in their own home. In addition, Petunia now knew that Hestia was perfectly able to dress like a normal person, and she desperately hoped she would consider doing so when she arrived on their doorstep. No matter how tempted she might have been, Petunia had more common sense than to ask Hestia to dress normaly. Petunia still highly valued appearances, and she would rather not liked to be embarrassed by Hestia if she was to be turning up at their house looking like a tramp or something along that line. No she would simply have to accept Hestia at Privet Drive dressed as she herself found appropriate.

Anyway, she did not tell her husband about their plan just then. She really needed to ease this kind of information on to her husband. He certainly would not approve if she just told him then and there. Allthough she did tell Dudley, but she asked him to keep the information to himself and not tell his father about it just yet. When Petunia did convey the information, however, she had predicted her husbands reaction quite correctly. Vernon did not approve of Hestia visiting Privet Drive at all. However, Petunia knew exactly how to coax him. She took her time with him, telling him that it was all for their dear Dudders education. She told him how this would benefit their son greatly. Vernon had to realize to himself that Hestia really had made wonders with their young boy and his education. He had seen Dudleys results himself, and he had turned out to feel utterly proud of him. No matter what he had been used to telling him in the past, he really did want Dudley to acchieve the best grades he could possibly get, now that he had become a young adult. The market for young adults to make something of themselves had become harder than they had been back in his old days.

Truth be told, Vernon had even been making some sort of plans to reward Dudley if he recieved high scores on his exams. Allthough he had not even told his wife about theese plans. The only thing was that he had imagined they would be staying at the Bee Hive for quite some time longer. It would have been more convenient for him and his family if Hestia had turned up at the Bee Hive and she could set Dudley the exams there. Allthough he supposed that Ax too would like to get back to his old life and be free of all of his house guests again. He knew he certainly would have liked that if it was him. His wife did not seem to mind Hestia visiting at all. Even though she would certainly have been incredible strickt on theese matters before they had come to stay at the Bee Hive. Oh, well, he would have to endure having Hestia over for a couple of days if Petunia and Dudley could. It certainly would benefit his son, so finally he agreed to their plan.

All of the inhabitants at the Bee Hive now started to adjust their minds into returning to their old lives. The only thing was; how could Dudley possibly go back to that life he had been living before, now knowing all about the exiting things existing in the magical world. He could not comprehend how on earth all of that would work out. He and Ax was sitting in the gazeebo one evening having a rather long conversation about it. The two of them had become quite close friends, and Dudley rather looked upon him as an uncle or a grandfather of sorts. He really wanted to keep in touch with Ax somehow, only he did not have an owl or any other means on how to contact him. Ax then suggested for him to give his letters to Steven Figg, he could probably pass them on for him if Dudley wanted to write to him. That was an exellent idea Dudley thought. He had almost forgot that there actually did live other people in the muggle world who was not magical but who knew about magic. He certainly would contact this Steven Figg person, whom his father too had set in such a high esteem. Both Dudley and Ax agreed that this was a great plan. Then he would be able to write to Poppy and Bumble too. He would very much like to keep in touch with them both. Peter was a whole different matter though. How he would miss him. Peter did not know how to write even though he was a very intelligent bumble bee. That would be Dudleys biggest loss of them all he thought.

Even Vernon complained to Petunia about not wanting to return to the daily traffic jam back and forth to work anymore. Therefore he had started concidering that he would continue his situation of working from their own home in Privet Dirve. He could take Harrys old bedroom and make it into a nice home office, now that he finally had got rid of Harry, he told her. He could very much like that room to become just like the one he had been using at the Bee Hive, because that room contained so many wonderful things. He had a bottle of brandy sitting in a cupboard that he did not even think Petunia knew about, he had that Cookie thing deliver him sugarcoated dried fruits whenever he had fancied some, in addition to pasties of various kind from time to time. She also brought him limonade whenever the weather had been warm. He admitted to himself that he would probably miss that. However he never had had any reason to complain about his wifes cooking and he certainly was looking forward to returning to his own house and to be left alone from that horrid Potter brat. He certainly would not visit them again, or so he at least hoped.

Petunia on the other hand was not too pleased with Vernons idea of working from their home at Privet Drive. It was one thing to be hanging around the house all the time there at the Bee Hive, however it would be a totally different matter to have him hanging around at Privet Drive all the time. That house was a much smaller one than this one, and she was a little anxious they would bump into eachother a lot more than they had done around here. It was not that Petunia had grown tired of her husband or anything, it was just that she knew he usually needed to blow off some steam from time to time, and she would rather he did that outside their home. At work for instance, where she did not happen to hear it. That fierce temper of his was the only flaw in her otherwise perfect and normal husband. He had never raised his voice to her however, no, never. He simply was a perfect gentleman towards her. However she had heard him yell at Harry, and even at Dudley from time to time. And she found it rather uncomfortable. If he were to be locked up in their house with only her for company from now on, she probably would see more of his bad temper than she had done up until then. Besides, Petunia had always cherished her alone-time at Privet Drive. She had always been used to having the opportunity to enjoy her perfecly normal life in peace and quiet. Therefore she tried her best to convince Vernon to be returning to his office in London after all. Or at least do so a couple or three days during a week.

Another reason Petunia had for wanting the house to herself was that she had planned for Cookie to pop in on her from time to time. The two of them had carefully arranged it all, and she did not want Vernon to find the two of them in their kitchen working alongsisde seamlessly like Dudley had done last christmas. That would certainly be the end of him. She was sure he would die of shock and disbelief if he knew she had accepted magic on something like Cookies level. After all their kitchen at Privet Drive was situated next to the living-room, not in a secluded part of the house like it was at the Bee Hive. Here she could stay inside the kitchen an entire day and Vernon would be none the wiser about it all.

She loved the way she and Cookie had worked together the last six to eight months. She was not looking forward to beeing the only one doing any work around the house. Admittedly she had not minded any of that before. But that was before she had become aquainted with Cookie. She loved the way everything was so easily prepared by her. She did not even have to break a sweat doing any of theese things. Ofcourse Petunia did have a more modernly equipped home who could perform almost whatever it was Cookie was doing. Only Cookies way was all that more exiting than to press the button on a blender. Petunia was still going to be the operator of the vacuumcleaner. She would have to scrub the floors and the counter top on the kitchen manually like she always had done. Cookie could just point at it and it worked for itself. How dull life was going to be without magic she thought. Petunia realized what she had just concidered and gave herself a mental shake. How could she think something like that? She who had always condemned magic. She would have to rid herself of that thought for good. She would have to become strong again, if not for anyone else but herself.

Then all of a sudden she realized that she had always loved magic. She had loved Lilys magic and all the things that she could do when she had been a little girl. She had been so jealous of her because she had not been able to do the same things. So she had condemned it all, and called her only sister a freak. She saw her own flaws now. She could see everything in a different light now that they had visisted the Bee Hive. How was she to go back to her ordinary life at Privet Drive? How was she to be happy living like that again? She knew her husband really was looking forward to return to their home, and that was the normal thing to feel. That was what she wanted to feel herself, only she had trouble making it so. She did not want her son or husband to know about any of her thoughts about this. She did not even confide theese feelings to Cookie at first. However after a while she did and she was comforted that she did not really have to return to the exact old life that she had if their plan worked. Petunia only had to make Vernon want to leave the house for work first.

Ax also had a hard time wrapping his head around their departure. He had grown rather accustomed to this muggle family living with him. He was of course happy that Voldemort had been brought down, but the abruptness of the departure from all of his new friends that he had made during theese months had rather taken him aback. He now admitted to himself that he did feel a little empty inside on the prospect of it. He tried his best to keep a merry facade and he knew that he truly was happy alltogether, because of the freedom their nephew Harry Potter had won the entire the Magical community. However, Ax simply could not shake the realization that he now was about to loose the company he had kept for approximately an entire year. He had grown so fond of them all that he almost had forgot they were only going to stay with him temporarily. He had known all along that he would have to say goodbye to them some day or other. Allthough admittingly, he had kind of hoped and thought they would stay there somewhat longer than this. Now it simply would take him some time to readjust himself to getting back to what used to be his everyday life. He found that it all seemed rather bleak from where he was standing at the moment.

Ax was happy that Dudley had expressed a genuine wish to be keeping in touch with him and his friends there. Allthough he thought to himself that Dudley was a young man on the beginning of his adult life. He was about to be setting off out into the world to aquire himself a job and most likely a family on his own eventually. He therefore did not expect too many letters fromt him after all. However, it had warmed his old heart that Dudley at least had expressed a wish to do so. Ax thought to himself that it would certainly be nice if young Dudley remembered to think of him every now and then at least.

Another week passed by since Hestias letter had arrived before she actually returned to the Bee Hive in person to collect them. She informed them all that the magical inforcement league had had to make sure there were none of Voldemorts Death Eaters left lurking about anywhere to endanger any of their lives in the future. She had been a part of a huge team rounding them all up for the ministry. Most of Voldemorts inner circle had already died during the war at Hogwarts. However some of them had slipped away at the end of the fight when they realized how everything would end. Nevertheless, they had managed to catch them and now they all were acounted for. Thus the Azkaban Prison now once again was filled with Dark wizards, and this time they were not likely to escape at any chance. Hagrid, the gamekeeper and teacher at Hogwarts, had removed all of his enormous spider friends from the Dark Forest at the school to stay at the Azkaban island instead, as an extra security measure together with the Dementors. He had announced that he felt the spiders no longer could be trusted not to harm humans since their leader and his own good old friend Aragog had diseased. They surely had showed their true nature during the war, and it would no longer be safe to keep them in the Dark Forest and this close to Hogwarts school anymore. In addition Hagrids newfound little brother Grawp the giant, had been given a position as the head commander of the spiders, and he seemed to be keeping them all in check. His giant blood was not inflicted by the Dementors grief and life-sucking nature so he was the only one strong enough to control them as well.

The day of the departure Hestia helped the Dursleys to pile all of their belongings into a heap outside in the Bee Hive-garden. Dudley had cried his heart out into the night, and more than he could even remember to have done ever before in his life. That was how sad he was about departing the place. He struggled with wrapping his head around how he was going to say goodbye to them all. Therefore he kept putting it all off for as long as he possibly could. Peter had stayed together with him day and night the past week. The two of them had been unseparable since they had realized they were going to part, perhaps forever. Dudley could not eat anything at all the last couple of days, and it made him grumpy and slow. He was especially grumpy towards his father. He did not have any patient with him at all. Perhaps the biggest reason for that was because Vernon seemed to be looking forward to be going home, and Dudley could not do so. Dudley found the idea of Privet Drive boring and bleak, with no huge bumble bees or house elves for him to talk to.

The final hour had arrived. Dudley all red-eyed from his crying, begun his long route of taking farewell with them all. He started with going down to the barn by himself to say goodbye to the animals, even though he had not really spent much time down there with them all. He figured it was going to be easier to practice on the ones he did not know all that well first. When he had finished and felt confident to move on, he said his goodbyes to the house elf family. However, when he faced Poppy and Bumble he could not conceal his feelings anymore. The stem of tears and bawling overpowered him and it took him several minutes to recover. He even had to double back to give them another hug.

He had no idea how to say goodbye to Peter however. He could not exactly give him a hug. Nevertheless, Peter took control of the situation and gave him a tiny present to remember him by. It was a teeny tiny little jar filled with honey, made into a key-chain. This key chain was a little special, he told him. It had all been Poppys doing. She had came up with this ingenious idea for him. Dudely could simply shake it three times and Peter would show up, and if Dudley heard the noise of a bee emitting from it, Peter was calling on him to check if he could pop by. If Dudley did not shake the chain three times however, Peter would know that it was not a good time for Dudley to have a visit from him. Peter told him that then he could be with Dudley for always he said. Dudley decided he would cherish that key-chain forever, and promised he would also use it alot.

Last but not least it was Dudleys turn to say his goodbye to Ax. Dudley really had been looking upon him as some kind of a close relative and he did not want to part from him. He really struggled with saying goodbye to him. Tears flooded and both Dudley and Ax was sobbing hard at the end of it. Finally Hestia had to brake them apart so that they could get a move on. She told them they had a Port Key to catch. Petunia was crying as well, watching Dudley say his goodbyes to Ax she had turned to her husband to cry on his shoulder, and as soon as Dudley tore apart from Ax she replaced Vernon with her son to support him in his grief.

Hestia pointed her wand towards their belongings, gave it a flick and the entire heap vanished, just like it had done the first day they arrived. However, this time around even Vernon did not lift an eyebrow, and that was saying something Hestia thought. Ax walked them to the garden fence, they all shook his hand one last time and then they were off. Dudley suddenly realized that he had not been outside of that garden fence since they had arrived there some ten months ago. There simply had been too much going on inside the Bee Hive garden to even consider stepping outside of it. On the other hand he had been afraid to leave their protected sphere. What if someone was lurking right outside of it? Also he had not permission to go there, and he certainly had gained respect for Hestia as an acomplished witch.

He respected Dedalus too ofcourse, however since he had messed things up in february and brought those dangerous wizards with him to the Bee Hive, Dudley found he was really trusting Hestia more. The last time he had walked on this path he remember he had been apprehensive towards what would meet them. He had no idea what so ever that he would meet with a nice old man and his wonderful creatures, and that he would fall in love with them all. This time, however, he simply wanted to soak in the whole scenary. He felt like he cared for all the bushes, trees and even the birds singing, because he had really enjoyed his stay there so much. Eerything in the forest was all so beautiful. It was the end of may, the sun was shining, and all the birds in the forest seemed to be singing to them. The streams surrounding them were trickling merrily, and the temperature was set on summer.

Allthough Dudley could see all of the beauty surrounding him, he still somehow felt as if he was attending a funeral, and nobody else but himself was truly remorsing. He truely felt downcast for leaving this place.

Before Dudley could realize it they had reached the shed where Vernons car had been hidden. Dudley felt like it had been an entire lifetime since last he had been there. He was not particularly dreading the weightless sensation he knew would have to come, but he was not looking forward to it much either. His father was dreading it he could tell. He became whiter and whiter in his face the closer they got to the shed. Allthough he kept his mouth shut about it. Vernon remembered the row Hestia and him had had just before she had left them to join the war at Hogwarts. In addition he was a little afraid that she still had a huge temptation of hexing him into a pincushion.

Hestia on the other hand had no such thought in her mind. She had forgotten all about their argument and her resentment against him. The relief of the magical community beeing freed by the Dursleys' cousin was overpowering. She had been present in the great hall of Hogwarts when Harry had ended Voldemort. She was so utterly proud of him that Harry could easily have been her own darling child. This affection Hestia felt for Harry Potter now was to be spent on all of the Dursley family members instead. All of her resentment towards Vernon had dissapeared, and she felt like the world was all in balance and a beautiful place to be alive in. She certainly would like to keep in touch with Ax and his friends at the Bee Hive. But mostly she had grown fond of young Dudley Dursley. He had been spoiled rotten by his mum and dad from his birth she knew. She also knew that none of that was Dudleys fault. He was simply the result of his own parents incapable abilities to raise a child. However, by influencing him herself together with Ax and Dedalus and even Peter the bumble bee, Dudley had changed into an outstanding young man she thoght. She also knew she had managed to turn his education totally upside down. Dudley himself had even started to like to study. At first she had been utterly astonished that his parents had not done something about any of it earlier. Then she had become better aquainted with them both and realized that they had simply done the best they could do to their son according to their own abilities.

The car was already packed and ready for them when they arrived. Vernon was surprised to find it in perfect condition from when he had left it. Not a scratch had ben inflicted on it, not even dust, leaves or bird droppings was sitting anywhere on his beautiful car like he had imagined it had been. He was immensly happy to see it and really looking forward to be getting behind the wheel and driving his family home again. Just after this last and horrific mumbo-jumbo part was over.

Since everything was ready for them they only had to get in the car, buckle up and wait for the port-key-car to take them back to where they originally had left the real world.

The Dursleys all yelled when they took off, and Vernon was quite sweaty in his face when they landed, other than that this move went a lot smoother than it had done the last time. After a few minutes inside the shed from the real world, that they had left all those months ago, they all caught their breath again, and Vernon backed out of it, and they were just about ready to drive back to Privet Drive. Hestia on the other hand was not to come along with them though. They were now safe and sound to manage on their own and she was going to say her goodbye to all of them there by te shed. It would only be a couple of weeks before they all would meet her again, so Dudley was not as downcast with her goodbye as he had been at the Bee Hive with the others. He only expressed a wish to say his goodbyes to Dedalus too someday. Hesita smiled and replied that they could talk about it when they next met.

The little Dursley family of three then headed back to their own home again. Truely alone for the very first time since little baby Harry had been brought to their doorstep. Petunia ought to feel relieved by it all, nevertheless, she simply felt all empty inside. It was as if she expected Harry to be waiting for them at home. Sitting in his bedroom with his owl and making a mess of her house. She felt like she did not mind his mess that as much anymore. He could keep his owl if he wanted to. But then she realized that he really was not going to be there at all. He would probably never return to them again. He most likely wanted to spend his life together with his own friends in the wizarding world. Just like her sister had done when she had become of age, she remembered with a little jolt to her stomach.

The only one with some kind of a spirit for going home and finally beeing freee from Harry was Vernon. He hummed and was acting so cheerful that Dudley could hardly stand it. He snapped at his father more than once on their journey home. It made Petunia wonder how on earth the two of them had managed to coexist at the Bee Hive for ten whole months. She knew it was all down on Ax, Hestia and Dedalus, in addition to the house elf family and Peter the bumble bee. And the size of the house and garden of course. They all had been keeping the two men in her life in cheque somehow, and she was now starting to dread how things would turn out to be at their own home. Hopefully it would make Vernon realize he would want to go back to work after all, and Dudley never usually stayed indoors when he was at Privet Drive. He probably would pick up his old habit of hanging outside together with his friends after his exams had finished.

They arrived at no 4 Privet Drive only half an hour after they had been moved with the Port Key to find their house had been searched and rummanaged. They ended up spending the best time of the afternoon putting things back into its rightful place and cleaning it back to its pristine shape. Petunia inwardly desperately wished that Cookie had been there to help her out, things would simply have gone so much quicker and smoother with her by her side. Instead Vernon and Dudley quarrelled with each chair, table and carpet they had to cooperate moving together.

In the end both Dudley and Petunia excused themselves to take an early night that evening, to Vernons great astonishment and dissapointment. He had been looking forward to sit down in his own livingroom, talking to his own family about whatever he had wanted to, or simply watching anything on the television set. Instead Vernon enjoyed a small lonesome glass of Ax' finest brandy before turning in himself. A bottle had been bestowed upon him from Ax as a departing gift, and Vernon realized to himself as he sipped his glass that he would want to cherish this bottle of brandy for a long time.


	51. Privet Drive Again

Before Dudley and his family had gone in hiding he had told his best friend Piers Polkiss that they were going into something that could resemble to a witness protection program from the government because of Harry. He had told him that Harry had meddled with someone quite dangerous and they were after him and his family. Dudley had never told Piers about Harry beeing a wizard. He had been told from his mother when he was just a toddler that he was never to mention it to anybody outside the family because that would make people think the Dursleys were all freaks. Both she and his father had banned all talk of abnormality from their home from his early childhood. Besides Dudley had been a witness to what kind of punishments Harry had recieved if he ever mentioned anything he had dreamt of or seen somewhere that was out of the ordinary. His parents had always opressed any kind of imagination from the both of them in fear of beeing discovered somehow.

He knew that they had only done this towards himself so that he would not run around to his little friends telling them all kinds of stories that went on inside their house. Therefore Dudley had kept it all to himself. One of Dudleys greatest fears was to be bullied by other people, so he had early taken the part of beeing a bully himself. Besides wich of his friends would ever believe him if he told them the truth about Harry? His friends also needed a strong leader and that was what he had wanted to be, so he made himself the biggest bully in the street.

Therefore the summer the Dursley family went under cover from lord Voldemort, Dudley had told his friends that he and his family were going in hiding from a dangerous person that was chasing after Harry. Wich was not a lie after all, only he could not elaborate to them without lying, so oddly enough, he had found himself refraining from telling them more than that. The public story of Harry was after all that he was a criminal, so his friends did not have a hard time believing what he had said. He had told them that this lunatic whom was after Harry, might even torture or kill them all, even themselves if they knew too much he had said. If this man or his friends happened to find Harrys family. Dudley, truthfully had not known for how long he and his family would have to stay away, but when they had said their goodbyes back then, they all had hoped they would see eachother again some day real soon. Dudley had a feeling they had not really believed in him though, that he had told them this to get some kind of attention. That did not matter though, they would all know that he was telling them the truth when he did not Return to school at least.

The thing was, by the time Dudley and his family returned to Privet drive all of his friends had gone away on a summer vacation. Somethign Dudley had forgot all about during his time spent at the Bee Hive. Dudley and his band of friends had been planning going on a trip together to Ibiza for a many years. They had planned a vacation for only the boys, no adults alowed. As a celebration after they had finished their last year at Smeltings. Now it seemed like they had all gone along on their vacation without him. He did feel a little sad and left out because of it at first. Allthough, there had been so many other things that had happened to him in his own life during the past ten months or so. Therefore, after just a few days back at Privet Drive he did not think about his friends`vacation all that much. He had been busy checking out his computer games again and had almost managed to fall back into his old habits again regarding that.

Except his key chain kept buzzing and Peter kept popping in every now and then. Dudely and Peter felt like keeping his visits a secret from his parents. Or at least from his father, he did not think that he was going to approve much of it. Therefore they kept to his room mostly, only when his mother called for him to go outside to enjoy the sun he felt guilty and left the room. He had been staying outside so much at the Bee Hive and he had enjoyed it so much there. In Surry everything was different. Their garden was miniscule in comparism to the Bee Hive. There were cars and other people everywhere. In the end he found a secluded corner of a graveyard not too far away from his house. There he and Peter could be together outside again. Except they did not feel as free as they had been back at the Bee Hive garden. Dudley told Peter how he missed Ax, Poppy and all the others. In adition to the house and garden itself. He really would like to visit Ax again some day he said. Peter told him that Ax missed them alot too. Not to mention Poppy and Bumbles loss of him. The place was simply not the same without all of them there. Ax had aquired some more goat-kids though, and Bumble was content playing with them. However Poppy had become very bored with everything around there indeed.

Dudley had bought himself a big sun-hat to wear outside. Peter needed to hide inside it whenever they heard other people. It was not as if normal people would be used to seeing an oversized bumble bee. His mother did not approve of the hat very much, however she was not the one to refuse her darling son anything in his life. If this was something he wanted to wear, she knew that she was not going to stop him.

Dudley liked the visits from Peter alot, and after a while he started thinking what ever would he be able to tell his friends when they returned from Ibiza. He could not tell them about anything at all. He did not even feel like he could tell them that he had been tutored by a woman to get through his last year of Smeltings, they would find all of that quite strange he knew. Theese thoughts made him wish that he would not have to meet his friends again at all. Simply because he felt so distanced from them alltogether. Even Piers Polkiss would find him a stranger when he returned. He dreaded their return after a while and found he really wanted to return to the Bee Hive for the summer instead. Something his parents certainly did not approve upon. His father told him he could get him a summer-job at Grunnings for if he'd like to. However Dudley did not feel like spending too much time together with his father either. Therefore his first days back at Privet Drive went by in some state of limbo between Privet Drive and the Bee Hive. Up until he really had to study for his exams that actually was coming up soon.


	52. Exams

The first week the Dursleys were back at Privet Drive they spent arranging their home back to normal again. There had been someone there for sure they could all tell. Everything had been turned upside down and the tv-set and some of Petunias finest china had been broken. Vernon claimed it to have been Harrys doing. But Petunia and Dudley said they were sure there had been some dark wizards there, why would Harry brake their tv set and china? When Vernon retorted that he did not know how a wizard was thinking. Perhaps he would do it as a last laugh at them? Dudley did not think so. Nothing had been stolen however. To him, however, it all seemed like somebody who was just a big bully had been there, and they had wanted them to know that they had been there just to scare them off. At first Dudley really was a little scared by it. However, Hestia had told them that she had thoroughly checked out their house before they were letting them return to it, and everything was perfectly in order for them to stay there and be quite secure. Dudley felt he trusted Hestia all that much by then that he truly felt did not have to worry about a thing.

After having moved into their house again and getting their things back to what felt like normality, Vernon wanted to visit his sisters Marges house. He needed to see it for himself that she really was not there anymore. All of their information had after all been conveyed to them by this Steven Figg person. A man they had never met in the whole course of their life. They arrived in her street the following saturday and found her house totally different from what it had been before. The house had apparently been sold and the new owners had been giving it a total renovation. Vernon rang the doorbell and talked to the new owners. They said that it looked like the house had been smashed up from the inside when they bought it, and it smelled strongly of dogs, but they had got a good price for it so they were happy to renovate it. Vernon did not say anything about his sister dying there. They had agreed with Hestia that he should not do so, even before he had been setting out to see the place. The new owners did not need to know that something quite tragic had happened to his sister Marge. Instead Vernon, Petunia and Dudley went to the local graveyard, to visit her grave. They all agreed that they should be very thankful for everything that Steven had done for them during their stay at the Bee Hive. The spot Marge had been put to rest was beautiful. The stone was a white marble stone with golden writing on it. The inscription said: "Bravery comes in many forms". Dudley knew it was put there because his aunt had faced one of the deadliest witches of all times. His old aunt Marge would not have stood a chance against that woman no matter what she would have done. She had been marked for death long before Bellatrix Lestrange had even reached her doorstep. Vernon sobbed so hard seeing her grave for the first time it took him about half an hour to recover and become calm enough to drive back to their own home.

Two weeks after the Dursleys had returned to Privet Drive Hestia Jones turned up on their doorstep as she and Petunia had planned. It turned out that she had perfectly managed to dress like a muggle. In fact she was wearing Petunias old costume, the one she had worn when she had visited Smeltings. Only she had given it a litle twist. She had put a cute little matching hat on top of her head to top it all off. It actually took Vernon an entire minute to recognize her. He was the one to open the front door. He had been aware that she was going to arrive one day. However, Petunia had conveniently neglected to tell him wich day she would arrive. She knew perfectly well that Vernon most likely would make a fuss about it waiting for her the entire day and filling the house with anxiety and annoyance simply because a witch was arriving at their house. She was not an "any one" to Vernon either. Hestia and Vernon was not exactly the best of chums and that made Petunia a little hesitant too. Petunia decided in the end that she was going to be the only one to know the date and time of her arrival. Petunia had arranged it so that it fitted in quite nicely with them having a nice cup of tea and cake on a beautiful sunday afternoon.

Vernon did not recognize Hestia until she started to speak. He certainly must have been looking dumbstruck at her because she looked exactly like a muggle, and admittngly a good looking one too. He then remembered that this was exactly what she had looked like after the makover Petunia had been giving her when she was going to Smeltings school. He truly did not have to look embarrasingly up and down the street this time to see if the neighbours were looking. Because if they did, he thought, they would be impressed that he knew somebody looking this good. Her looks quite weighed up for any dislike he had for her at the moment. Vernon invited her inside the house and Petunia entered the hall to welcome her, quite pleased to see her beeing able to dress herself properely. Petunia then showed her to the guest room she had prepared for her, so that she could unpack her belongings. After only a minute or so she returned to their livingroom were she met Dudely. He was genually pleased to see her even though he was really nervous because of the exams he was about to sit. He truly had missed her, and were happy to meet her again.

They all sat down and had some tea and cake while Hestia gave them more details on how the big fight truly had gone down at Hogwarts, and how proud they all should be of Harry for all of his great achievements. She spoke mostly to Dudley and Petunia when she mentioned Harry. She truly felt that Vernon was a completely hopeless case on this matter, and she had given up all together trying to improve his mind regarding Harry. Dudley and Petunia on the other hand actually were feeling rather proud of Harry, and Dudley was no longer ashamed to show her this at all, een infront of his father. Petunia tried to conceal it a little from Vernon, however Hestia knew Petunia a little better than to be fooled by her appearance. She had also seen Petunia work alongside Cookie in Ax's kitchen many times during the last ten months or so. She knew perfectly well that she would like to be a witch herself deep down. It was only Vernon whom had no idea what was going on there. Nevertheless, Hestia also knew that Petunia were blindly loyal towards her husband, and so she did not press her on the matter of Harry Potter at all, she simply conveyed the information.

After tea they discussed how and where they best should conduct Dudleys exams. They decided they would use Harrys old bedroom. Petunia showed Hestia upstairs to the old room. Nobody had bothered to enter that room ever since they had returned, there had actually been too many other things going on. Therefore, when Hestia entered it she was the first one entering it since Harry had been there himself. She saw his textbooks that he had left behind lying in a pile next to the bin. The bin itself was a little overfilled with rubbish. Mostly old parchments and broken quills. She even detected some dried up owldroppings on the desk as some kind of a proof of whom actually had been living there. There also were a calender dated to last summer hanging over the bed, where Harry obviously had been crossing out days as a count-down to the day he was departing this house. Hestia felt a jolt of anger towards Vernon in particular for treating his nephwe like this. She felt truly sorry for Harry seeing this calendar, she also was a little puzzled on how they could not get along with eachother. Well, she knew the answer. She heard him quite clearly cough downstairs. Vernon was not an easy man to overcome, and seeing that Petunia beeing so utterly loyal towards him she understood how it all must have been for Harry. Dudley, on the other hand, was only a victim of his parents´doing. Nevertheless, they had neglected Harry and any needs he might have had during his childhood. Hestia found that she really was amazed at how Harry could have managed to have become such a selfless person despite his upbringing. Allthough, Harry was one of a kind, everyone knew that.

Hestia told Petunia she would have to rearrange the furnitures in there a bit and that she would need to use some magic. Petunia recognized the warning, but said that she did not mind watching. After all, she had grown so used to it at the Bee Hive. Hestia gave a flick of her wand and the room transferred at once. All of the furniture dissapeared into nothingness. Another flick of her wand and there suddenly appeared two desks, a blackboard, and all other kind of equipment she would need for the exams. She invited Dudley to have a look at it when she had finished. He, ofcourse, thought it was super-cool, but asked her if he could use his computer for the exams. That was how the other students would be filing their exams and it might look strange if he wrote it by hand with a quill. Hestia agreed that it probably was a good idea. So he set up his computer and they were ready for his exams to start the next day.

Hestia had taken another trip to visit Smeltings school to get hold of the exam papers they would need. She had met with professor Higgins again and he was having a much better life than he had had when she first met him. He had been made headmaster of Smeltings and had given the school a totally new reform. The previous headmaster; professor Rogers had resigned his post, because he had incurred himself with a peptic ulcer. He also had become a little bit nervous on his old days, poor man, and was now working as the custodian on a local gym. Hestia had no problems in obtaining the papers, she was on such good terms with professor Higgins that he did not mind handing them to her himself. After all, she was the one who had changed his life for the better, so that was the least he could do for her. He also did not mind that young master Dursley was to send in his paper seperately to be corrected. They usually sent the results of the exams directly to the students homes so there was no problem that he did not turn up really. Hestia then had met his dogs again and they had turned out to be theese sweet little dogs, well raised and bred.

Now everything was ready for Dudleys exams to begin. He was as nervous as he ever had been before any exam before. He had never cared this much about his exam results in his entire life. He knew that Hestia had been an excellent teacher, she also had managed to teach him the true value of knowledge. He knew his entire future carreers depended on theese results. If he was to take over his fathers position at Grunnings one day. Or even better, if he were to aquire himself a job anywhere else he really needed to get some decent grades. Nevertheless, the best part of it all was that Hestia had told him that he could choose his own reward if he got himself some decent grades.

Hestia had been an exellent teacher to Dudley. It was as if she could read his mind. She understood exactly when he did not understand what she was talking about, then she took her time to patiently explain things and terms to him that no other teacher had ever bothered to do to him. Soon enough he had got the hang of things. He started to get better grades from her when she gave him tests, and his selfesteem rose with it. He knew that she had been giving him a good base to achieve some decent grades on his exams. However he still had a great deal of nerves about it all. Hestia tried her best to calm him by telling him that nerves only sharpened his scenses and made him focusing on the task. Curiously this actually did calm him down a bit, and he said to himself that he would pretend they were back at the Bee Hive, and she had only set him one of her little tests. Therefore he was determined to relax a bit and do as well as he could manage.

He could not help thinking that only a year ago he just would not be bothered with any of this at all. He thought this last year had really done him good in so many ways. He would have to thank Hestia properely he thought. No matter how the results of his exams would turn out to be, she had really made a difference to him. He would have to think think of something nice to give her after his exams was done.

Hestia had arranged for Dudleys exams to be spread over a week. He had two exams a day, and he ended up beeing totally exhausted with it every evening. Nevertheless, in his determination he managed to cram in some reciting every evening before he went to bed. Hestia had planned a very strict week indeed for him. He would start his first exam at eight o'clock in the morning, and he had four hours on each exam. His mother prepared a nice lunch for him to eat at twelve o'clock, and then he sat his next exam from one o'clock, and finished at five. The only day he did not have to sit two exams was the last one. His happiness of having finished this tough week and actually survived it all, was something of a shock to him. He even actually thought he might not have done too bad on some of the exams. He was at least hoping for passing grades on everything, however, he did not expect too much from the grades or to have acchieved the highest grades at all. Still, he imagined his resaults would be a lot better by Hestias tudoring than with any of his other teachers. Now all he could do was to wait and see. They had sent his exams to Smeltings School as planned, and it would take some weeks for the resaults to return to him. Therefore he now would only have to wait and see.

After having finished his last exams and the luncheon his mother had prepared, Dudley popped out to a local flourist to buy some fresh flowers to give to Hestia. This was the least thing he could do as a nice gesture towards her as a thank you for helping him with his school work and everything. He had bought a card and wanted to write something nice on it to her. However when he held his pen ready to write, his mind turned quite blank. In the end he wrote "Thank you. Dudley". That would do well enough he thought.

When Hestia recieved it she actually started to cry a little. She gave him a nice and tight hug and kissed him on his forhead. Something he was used to by his mother only. He got a little misty-eyed himself, and turned away blushing slightly. Hestia said she would find a nice vase for them as soon as she got home.

The best part of the entire exams was that Hestia had told him to choose his own reward if his exams-results turned out to be decent enough. They had set a certain level for certain rewards, and he really wanted his highest price of reward. He had been careful not to set his goal too high, and was very much hopeful to have acchieved at least his lowest goal. His highest price was actually to visit Diagon Alley. He really wanted to do that if he could. He had heard so much about it from Dedalus especially, that he desperately wanted to see the place. However, he was not sure he was even allowed to, since he was a muggle and everything. Allthough, he knew that muggles in company with magical people could go if they were invited. Muggle parents to magical children and squibs who knew how to find the Leaky Cauldron would be able to get in, and if Hestia was willing to join him he surely must be able to get there too he thought. He did feel a little jealous towards Harry beeing a wizard and beeing able to enter both worlds as much as he wanted to. This was a secret Dudley had kept completely to himself and he would very much like to keep it that way. At least untill he got his exams results. Only if Hestia told him his results were good enough for his highest prize he would reveal his secret wish to her, and he would then ask her to keep it a secret from his parents too. He certainly did not want his father to know anything about it. He would probably kick him out of the house or something if he knew. Dudley knew his father loved him dearly, and he probably would not kick him out. Still, Vernon hated anything that had to do with Harry. Therefore, if Dudley told him he liked magic it would probably give him a heart attack or something. So he decided this way was better.

Dudley also really wanted to meet Ax, Dedalus and Poppy too if that was possible. Coming to think of it there were many things that had to do with the magical world that he was eager to see or know even more about. He also thought that Hestia was the only person in the world he could tell any of theese things, besides Peter and Poppy ofcourse. She had become his confidant in many things that had to do with the magical world. She almost knew him better than his parents did, he felt. Dudley could not talk to his father about anything exept boxing and perhaps money. His mother still fussed about him for everything, he felt. It was almost as if she had not realized that he now was a grown up man and that he needed to try out things on his own. This last year at the Bee Hive he had been surrounded by three other grown-ups that looked at life very differently from what his parents did. Dudley sometimes even felt like he had more in common with theese three than with his own parents. He had thought about his magical friends quite alot since he had returned to Privet Drive. He found he missed them more than he thought he would and wished he could talk to them again. Dudley was not very good at writing letters, and it took him some time to write his first letter to Ax. However when he first had started, he turned out to have quite alot on his heart that he managed to put in to that letter. Dudley sent the letter to Steven Figg, he had got his home adress from his father whom already had it. It took only one day for Ax to answer Dudleys letter. He had sent him a big fat letter where Ax told him about how empty the Bee Hive was after they had departed. All his friends there sent him his love and Ax also expressed his wish to meet him in return, if possible.


	53. Diagon Alley

Diagon Alley

Two weeks after Dudley sat his exams Hestia turned up on their doorstep once more. She looked just like a muggle this time as well, and Vernon was once again impressed with her ability for doing just so. They all sat down in the living room and Hestia handed Dudley his letter. Vernon wondered how on earth she had aquired his letter in stead of it appearing in their mailbox as usually. However he did not ask or show any sign of annoyance towards her because of it. This was his dear sons day of exitement and he did not want to spoil anything for him.

Dudley recieved the letter and his hands were shaking with nervous anticipation. As the muggle grading system was quite different from the magical one, Dudley felt that he had to explain it to Hestia before he even opened the letter. If he had an A, that was the very best grade he could achieve, however he told her he did not anticipate anything like that. Then if he recieved an F it was the worst thinkable grade, as the letters D and F would be failing grades. Therefore, he was hoping for Cs or higher. He had been sitting nine exams and he needed to get more than four passing grades alltogether if he was to recieve his diploma. Hestia had even told him that he would need at least seven passing grades to get his first treat. Dudley got one D wich was a failing grade. However, then he recieved five C's and three magnificent B's on his exams! He was actually totally shocked and were jumping up and down the coach not beeing able to contain himself at all! He had not thought he would recieve any B's at all, and here he was, holding in his hand a paper that told him he had managed three wonderful B's! The one failing D-grade he did not bother with at all! That was only from Geography and he never had any interest in that at all. Besides he would not be bothered much with that in the future. Two of his grades was important though. One was a business class he had taken, and the other was mathematics, and he had managed to get B's on both of those. He really was ecstatic! Both his parents was over the moon with ecstacy too. His mother screamed and hugged him as they both jumped up and down before she started to sob with happiness onto his shoulders. Vernon shoock his hand vigourusly and told him that he would buy him a car for this! As soon as he got his drivers licence they would go out and get him his very own car! Dudley could not be any happier he thought. However then Hestia told him that she had promised him a treat of his own choice as well if he did well, and he certainly had won first price, and now she wanted to know what it was he wanted to do. However, Hestia had managed to be quite subtle about her reveal to him. Vernon was busy in seach of one of his special cigars and to pour them glasses of Ax's fine brandy to them all, and Petunia had popped into the kitchen to bring out a special cake she had prepared for him. Therefore, only Dudley and Hestia were there to hear their silent conversation.

Dudley told her about his wish of visiting Diagon Alley and perhaps meet up with Dedalus and Ax as well at the same time. Hestia looked at him a little bit astonished, but then she actually felt impressed with him. Wishing to meet people and explore unnkown ground was a step up from the material things his parents was giving him all the time. This was Dudleys true personality she felt. She could not promise anything to him regarding his wish to visiting Diagon Alley right then and there unfortunately.

Dudley whispered arguments to her about muggle parents and squibs beeing able to go there. Peter had told him so. And seeing as he knew about the place, what difference would it make? Hestia promised him she would do some inquiering about it and then give him an answer. Hestia felt it was a bit of a tricky question, it was not something the magical community usually was facing. Besides, there was a reason for the magical world to be hidden from muggles. Therefore, Hestia prepared Dudley not to get his hopes up too high with the outcome of her answer. She also begged him to try and come up with a back-up alternative. However, Dudley had his answer ready, if he couldn't visit Diagon Alley, he wanted to meet them all at Ax' place once more for a feast. Hestia really was impressed with this young man. When she had first met him he was just a spoiled brat with too many material things. Allthough she had seen potentials in him the very first day when he expressed some respect towards Harry. She now understood more of where he came from, and could see him in a totally different light than she had on their first encounter.

It took Hestia three days to send Dudley her answer. Nevertheless, on Dudelys very own birthday he recieved her answer. He thought to himself that this could either become his best birthday present ever, or his worst.He opened her letter quite nervously and started reading. Hestia said that she had even been talking to their new Minister for Magic, Kingsley Shackelbolt about it. She had used Dudleys own arguemants she told him, and Kingsley had given them permission to bring him there for this one time only. Dudley punched the air and whooped out loud when he read it. His mother poked her nose around the kitchen door when she heard it and asked him what he was so happy about. Dudley almost told her, because he really was so exctatic about it. But then his father entered through the outdoor and he hurried to tell his mother it was nothing. He simply kissed her cheek said to her that it was a lovely birthday and ran upstairs to read his letter once more. Hestia told him that he would have to get himself to London and she would meet him there at Kings Cross station. The excurtion was to take place the coming friday at twelve o'clock. Ax, Poppy, Peter and Dedalus would all be meeting them at the Leaky Cauldron where they were going to have a nice meal after Dudley had visited Diagon Alley. Hestia said that if he wanted to he could bring some money and she could change his muggle money into Galleons, Sickles and Knuts. Then he could actually buy something in their shops. Then again, she had to warn him that he would only be able to buy fun stuff from The Weaslys, parchments and quills from Bertie and Blotts, and sweets from Honedukes. There were many other shops there but he was not allowed inside all of the shops seeing as he was a muggle. Not all magical people would look happily upon a muggle in Diagon Alley, so they would have to be quick about their business when they entered it.

Dudley did not care about that, he was all in joy about beeing able to enter that particular hidden world of Harrys. Allthough that last part of the letter, of him perhaps not beeing welcome there because he was a muggle, worried him a bit. He did not want to end up with another pigtail or anything. Then he remembered that he had Hestia and Dedalus there with him after all, and he calmed down a little bit. He trusted them both with his life he felt, especially Hestia. Besides, they could probably fix him up again like that Weasly man did with his tounge that time. Hestia had also patched him up once he had got a bad papercut back at the Bee Hive. It took her just one tiny flick of her wand and he was back to normal. His mother had been with him then and she said that her sister used to do that to her all the time after she had started at Hogwarts too. Therefore he knew this was all the normal way for witches and wizards to mend minor injuries.

The coming friday Dudley had got dressed, ate breakfast and told his mother he probably would be home late that evening. She did not ask him where he was going, so he did not feel guilty for not telling her. He was glad she did not ask, then he did not have to lie to her. Because he was determined he was going to keep this a secret from his parents.

He took the train to London and met Hestia at Kings Cross as planned. Then they took a taxi to a part of the city Dudley was not familiar with. Hestia told him to relax as she noticed that he was quite nervous. They left the taxi and crossed the street. She steered him up to a place where two of the shops joined eachother, then she asked him if he could see the door in the joint between the shops. He told her no he could not, and then she asked him to look again, and there it suddenly was. How very strange, he thought. He was certain that door had not been there a minute ago when he first looked. Hestia walked up to the door and asked him if he was truly ready for the magical world. Dudley gave a deep sigh, felt his face crack into a grin and said yes he was ready. Hestia opened the door to the old Pub and he heard a lot of voices in there. It obviously was a popular place even this early in the afternoon. Inside it smelled strongly of that pipe that Ax used to smoke and it somehow felt like something familiar to him. He did not recognize anybody there, and all of the people in there looked alot like Hestia and Dedalus with their ordinary outfit. It was as if they had their own brand of fashion. With a pang he thought he saw Harry, and he got afraid he would meet him there. He was sure Harry would not approve of seeing him inside his own world, the only place he would be free of him and his family. Perhaps he would hex him and turn his new found friends against him. Perhaps he would be trapped in this strange world and not beeing able to get back out of there? However, he then suddenly heard a familiar voice stand out from the crowd. It was Dedalus cheering and laughing his usually loud laugh. Then Dudley spotted him and Ax standing together at the bar laughing and drinking a pint of beer it seemed. Hestia and Dudley found their way through the crowd and met up with the two men. Dudley hugged Ax hard and long before letting him go, trying to make him know how much he had missed him without saying a word. Dedalus too was utterly happy to see Dudley there. He told him this was someting different for him to experience. Dudley, Ax, Dedalus and Hestia were all going to walk together outside into Diagon Alley.

They stepped out into the back yard, and Dudley suddenly felt a little confused. There was nothing there except some dustbins a tabby cat lying on top of one of them and som empty wooden boxes sitting in a corner. However Hestia brought out her wand and tapped some of the bricks above the bins and all of a sudden they started to move and finally they made an archway into a cobbled street that was called Diagon Alley. «Wooah» said Dudley in earnest. This was truly amazing. Not just the archway, but the entire street beond. He thought of Harry again, who had been there so many years ago. He imagined if he was eleven years old and had this experience for the first time. He himself felt like he was eleven years old right there and then. He really wanted to run to each and every shop window and check everything out. Nevertheless, he reminded himself he had just turned eighteen years a couple of days ago, and had to refrain himself from all of theese immediate urges. They started to walk down the street and Dedalus was almost as exited as Dudley himself were, and wanted to show him everything. Ax took the backseet of their party. He had seen it all so many times before. He was ofcourse happy that Dudley got to see it all, but was not all together sure what good it would do him. This was a one-time-only visit for him. Perhaps it would have been nicer to tell him he could not come. He knew he would want to come back one day, and he would probably be the one he would ask, and then he might had to tell him no he could not.

Dudley on the other hand had nothing of the sort in his mind at the moment. He could not get his eyes on enough of all the things he was seeing. Hestia told him that they could go inside the bookshop if he wanted to. He said ok, because he knew the number of places he could go to were limited, and he wanted to see as much of what he could when he first was there. He found some quills that had self correcting ink, and thought that would probably come in handy one day. He also bought some pencils that you could chew on, and it tasted like candy. He got himself some rolls of parchment, sealing wax and a book about dragons. He thought that looked cool so he definately wanted that one. He got some help from Hestia with the payment. He did not want to attract any attention to himself so he asked her to take care of all of that.

They left that shop and passed the shop where they sold Broomsticks. He knew Harry had one, and he felt a little twinge of jealusy not beeing able to buy one and learn how to ride it. He asked Hestia if they could please go inside the shop that sold the broomsticks but Hestia firmly said no they could not. Naturally he was feeling a little downcast by that, but then they moved on. The next shop was called the Honeydukes. That was a shop that only had been found in Hogsmeade earlier, a town placed right outside Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry. However, since the winning of the war they had decided they were ready to expand for Diagon Alley as well. So they had only just opened up the shop there. Dudley really did go bananas in there. He wanted a little bit of everything he saw. The only thing he did to himself that was something like reason was to ask Hestia and Dedalus to tell him if anything he bought was dangerous or would turn him into something else. They both smiled at him, thinking of how the Weasly twins really had messed him up by giving him that sweet all those years ago. Anyway, Dedalus told him that if he was anxious he probably would not want to taste the levitating sherbets. However, something like that would not stop Dudely from buying them. He was only afraid of stuff what would harm him. After he had filled his bag with candy and almost spent the entire lot of his money, they left Honeydukes. Dedalus asked him if he did not want to go inside Weaslys Wizard Weezes Shop? But Dudley declined it. He did not want to be recognized by the two twins. Even though he had thought them quite cool when he had listened to them on the wireless it was another thing to actually meet them in person. He knew they were good friends of Harrys and he did not want Harry to know that he had even been there at all if he could help it. Dudley told them this, but Dedalus looked at Dudley, laid a hand on one of his shoulders and told him in a sombre voice that one of the twins had actually died in the battle. Dudley looked at him with distrust then at Hestia, he could not believe it. They were so young! he said, only a couple of years older than him. How could they be in a dangerous situation like that? Dedalus looked at him with a little disbelief in his eyes and said that Harry was in that fight and he was younger than them both, and he too had faced death that night. Suddenly Dudley realized what he had just said, and said yes ofcourse, he knew that. He was just dumbstruck with the knews that one of the twins actually had died. They were so cool, he said. Dedalus replied that everyones life was in danger that night, and many was unlucky and lost their lives. Still Dudley did not want to enter their shop.

They returned to the Leaky Cauldron but not after Dudley felt that he had drunk the entire street in by looking at it. He wanted to remember this experience for the rest of his life. Ax had left them when they entered Honeydukes shop, he had been shopping a little on his own, and was to meet them back at the pub. Hestia had arranged for them to have a little parolur to themselves, and Tom the barkeeper showed the them the way. As he stopped and let them enter the room he looked at Dudley and asked him if he really was Harry Potters cousin. Dudley gulped a little but answered him confirming that he was. Tom the barkeeper held out his hand wanting to shake it. He smiled his toothless smile and told him he was most welcome there, and he hoped he had enjoyed his trip into Diagon Alley. Dudley said that he certainly had, and that it would become a memory for life. Tom told him that Harry Potter had been living there for two weeks in his third year, after he apparently had blown up an aunt of his. But perhaps he knew all about that already. No, Dudley did not know that this was where he had went. Tom told him that he had been looking after him a little since that mass murderer Sirius Black had been after him. Well, Tom said that turned out to be wrong too, didn`t it? Then he shook his head, chuckeld a little and left them.

They were all about to sit down around a table when Poppy, Bumble and Peter showed up. Dudley was really exited to see them all, and run over to hug them all at once. Poppy told him that Bumble had sneaked away with her because he really wanted to see him too. So that he could see for himself that he was back to his good old self again. Dudley hugged them both again and smiled then he said he thought that it was really cool of him to do so. They had a three cours dinner and everything was to everybodys delightful taste. Dudley got to taste mead for the first time, and then there were pumkin juice too. He loved it all. He regretted not buying some from Honeydukes, but it would simply have been too heavy for him to carry back from the trainstation. They spent the best of four hours in eachothers company before Hestia told them she had to take Dudley back to the trainstation. They took their time to say goodbye, and had already decided that this would not be the last time they all met. They could find the time and place as long as they all just kept in touch.

Still Dudley felt very sad when he stepped out of the Leaky Cauldron and as he turned back to see the door for the last time it was already gone. He knew that if he came looking for it alone someday he would not be able to enter the bar. It was only for the magical community and they had made it so to be left alone from muggles. Muggles like himself he thought.

It was a gloomy trip home for Dudley that evening. When he entered the house his mother stuck her head out the kitchen door and asked him if he was allright? He said yes, but he knew he could not fool his mother on this. He went upstairs to put away his new things. But a minute later his mother was knocking on his door. He told her to enter and she asked what was the matter. Dudley did not want to lie to her so he told her the entire story and where he had been and whom he had met. Petunia looked at him a little puzzled and asked why he was so depressed when he obviously had had the time of his life? He told her it was because he did not belong there himself, and he liked his new friends alot and would like to meet them every now and then. This was the time for Petunia to admit someting to Dudley and reveal one secret that she never thought she was going to tell anybody living. She told him about her childhood, her sister, the magic and about the letter she had written to that Professor Dumbledore who had visited them a couple of years ago. Dudleys mouth was wide open the entire time she spoke. He could not believe it. Not from his mother! She had been so rigid with Harry when he had lived there. She said that she really had hoped to squeeze the magic out of him. Besides, she loved Vernon for his normality, and that she was afraid of what he would say if he knew. She made Dudley promise not to tell any of this to Vernon, and Dudley said he would if she did not tell him where he had been that day. They shook on it and she left his room. Dudley felt a little better knowing that he was not alone in wanting to become a magical person in that house. In addition he felt a newly found respect for his mother. He found he looked at her a little differently than he had used to do. He certainly knew she had liked Cookie, and he remembered seeing them together in the Bee Hive kitchen around christmas that time. He started wondering if his mother too did not miss the Bee Hive a little. She would probably not tell him if he asked. He knew she was far too loyal towards his father.


	54. Grunnings

About three and a half weeks after Dudleys exams, Vernon decided it was about time he visited his work. He wanted to surprise them all, so he decided he did not want to tell his collegues he was coming. He got in his car and started driving. He was humming a little to himself as he drove away. He loved driving his car, it was his alone time of the day and it had been a long time since he had actually been quite alone. Perhaps it would not be such a disaster if he did go back to working in the office again after all. When he sat out for this day he had planned to give them a little visit and tell them that they could all just carry on as they had done for about a year now, but the further away from his home he drove the more he started to doubt it. Perhaps Petunia was right, he probably would get bored just walking around the house all day. Petunia had her things to do and it was possible that he would just be in the way? Besides, their house was all that much smaller than that Bee Hive house. There had even been alot more people over there as well. No, she probably was right, it was for the best that he went back to work at the office.

He sighed and felt a little dissapointed with this realization. He had been looking forward to not sit in a traffic jam hour after hour, day after day. But all right, if this was what Petunia wanted him to do, it probably was for the best.

This particular day there was no traffic jam at all, probably because he was driving in the middle of the day. What if that could be his compromisse? He could work at different hours than he was used to before? He would have to talk to the main office about all of this, but he was sure he was going to be able to persuade them that this was a good idea for him. Perhaps he could even keep this Steven Figg person as a secretary or something. He really had turned out to be an indispensable chap. He was also looking forward to meeting him at last.

Vernon Dursley had an created an image in his mind of what this Figg fellow looked like. Somehow he very much resembled a younger version of himself. He would ofcourse wear a suit and tie, his shoes would be polished and his hair would be sleek. A "Dudley 2.0" if you'd like. Vernon smiled to himself thinking up such a clever expression. He had no idea about whatsoever that would mean, but in his head he thought it must have something to do with computers. Steven, it seemed, was exactly like a computer. He was always pressing the right buttons to make a deal come through for the business. Quite satisfied with himself Vernon was, thinking up all theese things.

Vernon suddenly felt a little nervous standing outside the front entry of his work ready to take the elevator up to the ninth floor, as he had done so many times before. Should he have called them first to announce he was coming after all? What if he did not get the welcome back greetings at all that he secretly was expecting and hoping for? He knew he could be a little short tempered from time to time. But everybody at the office knew he always was under a lot of pressure. So he was sure they did not mind all that much. Well he decided he would show them his best side and be in his good spirit today. He decided he should be friendly with everybody. Even that secretary of his. She had always shown him alot of respect, and perhaps he had not always been giving her his best mood in return.

Vernon entered the office door. However, he suddenly had to stop in his tracks and check if he had got off at the right floor. Because he did not recognize anything he saw in there. It seemed like his favoured stacks of paper had vanished. Some of them even seemed to have transformed themselves into paper aeroplanes. A football banner was hung over the copy machine, and a radio in the corner was playing a jolly tune. He tried a few steps in, and recognized two of his employees having a laugh over a cup of coffee! He felt his aggrevation rise! This was not on! It seemed as if his good old standards of dicipline had been thrown out the window as soon as he had left them alone! He turned his head left and saw his old secretary jabbering with one of the ladies from HR, and they were both laughing in a shrill laughter he had never heard coming from them before. He felt his fury building up inside of him like magma, and his early thoughts of showing them his best side that day was blown away with the wind it seemed. This was not a kindergarten where you had all kinds of fun! His idea of good work ethics was that laughter belonged on their own sparetime. How many times had he not told them this?! This was a serious work place with serious people! What if the bosses from the main office witnessed any of this? It was simply outragous! The old vain in his temple was bothering him again as it usually did when his temper rose, but it was a long time ago since his anger had risen like this. It was usually Harry Potter who could manage to tick him off this fast. He took a few furious steps towards his old office door. He could see people moving inside it and there even came laughter out from that door as well. By now some of his old collegues had noticed him, and all the laughter, music and talk around the office had started to quiet down. Even the radio had been trurned off. His feet steered him straight towards his office where he tore open the door and stared ferociously about the roomm. There he spotted two fellows playing miniature golf of all things! They both had their backs turned against him so he did not immediately recognize them. The only two words he managed to say was "What the..?!" and the two men turned around. Both of their faces lost their mirth when they spotted him. Vernon recognized one of them to be his own boss from the main office, and the other fellow must have been that Steven Figg person, because he reached out his hand to introduce himself just as Vernon felt a sharp pain in his chest and throughout his left arm. He was actually having a heart attack. He only managed to splutter out a few more indistinctive words before he passed out.

Vernon woke up in what only looked like a hospital room. He could see his wife sitting next to his bed on a chair. Dudley was sitting in a different chair with his feet up, resting on a third chair. They obviously had been there for a while, because Dudley seemed to be more interested in a video game he had brought with him than his own father beeing ill. Petunia saw him waking up and called for Dudley, who got up and stood by his bed. Vernon actually started to cry and said it was awful. Petunia thought he was talking about his heart-attack, and patted him on the shoulder and said "there, there", but he was talking about his visit at the office. She understood more when he told them that Steven was not at all what he had expected, and the office just did not look like it used to at all. Nothing was as it had used to be! That Steven Figg had turned out to be the biggest dissapointment of them all. He looked just like a wizard!! Petunia backed him up and said that he did not have to go back there in if he did not want to. Anyway, he was going to be on a sick leave for some time now. So he really was not going to be thinking about work at all Petunia hoaxed. He was instructed to take it easy and not get exited or aggrevated in any ways. He was going to be in there for some time under observation.

To top it all off for him, the doctors and nurses there even wanted him to loose some weight so that he did not get another heart attack soon. However, Vernons thought of giving up bacon for the rest of his life was not something he was going to let happen all that easily, so he ordered Petunia to smuggle him some every day when she came in. She did in the beginning, because she felt so sorry for her poor husband. But then after a while she realized that if she kept doing that he might get ill again and then it would have been all her fault, so she stopped giving him bacon all together.

A few days after Vernons had his heart attack. Petunia was taking him outside in a wheelchair when she told him that she had recieved a letter from Ax where he asked how Vernon was doing. She told him that Ax really had wanted to come visit him in the hospital if it was ok with Vernon. Vernon thought it was a great idea. He did not get many visitors exept from Petunia and Dudley. Besides, Dudley had started studying to get his drivers licence so he did not have much time for his dear old father those days. Since Vernon had lost his sister he did not have any other relatives ,and he had forbidden that Steven Figg to visit him at all. He had been such a dissapointment in appearance that Vernon just could not face him again without getting a new heart attack. How could a man look like that and still get the job done so perfectly? It was beyond any of his own comprehension. He had turned out to look the exact opposite of what he had hoped and imagined. He looked more like a wizard than he had ever feared, even though he was not, he was a squib! But to Vernon that was almost the same when it came to Steven. He belonged in the wizarding world that was clear to Vernon. Steven had been tall and lanky, bushy hair and all casual in his dressings. He obviously had the entire office on his side, because they all seemed to enjoy themselves. The greatest shock to him alltogether, was his boss from the main office enjoing himself with miniature golf in his very own office! That was simlply preposterous! The main office would never had found him doing such a thing!

Arabrax and Petunia showed up at the hospital together a couple of days later. He had brought some flowers from the garden that he knew Vernon was not allergic to. And he had brought with him some photographs of the place so that he would remember the tranquility there. Vernon enjoyed the pictures. Even the one with Peter and his friends on it. Vernon had not been a huge fan of Peter at the beginning of their stay, but he was actually pleased to see him in a photograph. He asked how they all were doing and if he by any chance had brought any of that fine brandy with him. Ax actually had a little flask of brandy in his pocket, he also knew it was not good for him, but thought that if a little sip of his old brandy made him happy it certainly would not kill him, and if it did, he would die a happy man. The visit from Ax was one to remember Vernon thought. They had played cards and talked of what seemed like old times, but actually, they had only happened a couple of months ago. In Vernons reflection he started to think of his stay at the Bee Hive as something he would remember for the rest of his life and his friendship with Ax as one of his best friends ever. He did not have any objection to him beeing a Squib! No, he was a totally different squib than Steven Figg! That rascal!

During the next weeks Vernon slowly but surely lost some weight and Petunia and the doctors was happy about his progress. The only one not beeing happy was Vernon. He had had to give up bacon and all kinds of delicious food his wife used to serve him. Theese days it was all full brans and low fat diet. The flask he had got from Ax he had managed to hide away, lucky for him, he thought. However, it was getting empty soon and he was trying to get Dudley to smuggle him some more from his bottle at home. Dudley had already done this once, but regretted it very much afterwards. Therfore he told Vernon that he would not do it again and he would better not ask him. Unfortunately for Vernon one of the nurses found his flask one day she was cleaning. This particular nurse was one of the stricktest ones on the hospital and she took it away from him quite unceremoniously. This made him so angry he almost jumped out of the bed. But then he felt the pain in his chest again. This time the heart attack was rather more severe than the first one he had, and unfortunately, he did not make it this time.

Petunia fell into hysterics when she recieved the telephone from the hospital that he had deceased. She had trouble believing it since he had been on such a good path of recovery and loosing weight. However, the doctors told her that since he already had had one heart attack he very likely would have another one. It had only been a matter of time really. His corpulent size and his late families history of health issues it was a wonder that he had managed to survive that long.

Dudley felt bad that he might had been the one who had caused the death of his father, providing him with more brandy. However, the doctors and nurses all said to him that his heart was like a ticking bomb, and that it would not take much to set him off. Vernon beeing a short tempered man, this was almost what the doctors had anticipated.

The funeral for Vernon Dursley happened on an ordinary thursday. It was raining and only a handful of people attended it. There was ofcourse his wife and son. His good friend Arabrax, Hestia, Dedalus, Steven Figg and Vernons boss from the main office. It was a short and simple ceremony, and when it was all over, they were invited back to Privet Drive for some cakes and coffe. Both Dedalus and Hestia had managed to dress pretty much as normal people, and Petunia had no reason to be ashamed to be seen together with them. Obviously Hestia must have given Dedalus a hand, and perhaps she even had helped Ax pick out a new suit as well, because she almost did not recognize him. He had cut his hair and trimmed his beard, so he did not look quite so wild anymore. Vernons old boss only stayed for a little while, he felt very guilty for bringing Vernon into a heart attack that day at the office. After he had gone however, they all started to talk a little more freely.

Both Petunia and Dudley turned out to like this Steven Figg person. They told him that Vernon had been very much impressed with the work he had done during the passing year. None of them were surprised to hear that he had taken over Vernons old position at Grunnings. Even though this ment that Dudley was not to follow in his fathers footsteps after all, he found did not mind much. He wanted to find something different, something that might interest him a bit more than simple drills. He did not know what that would be yet, but he would figure out something he thought. Ax had brought Petunia a gift of sorts. It was an old teapot and a sugar spoon. He told her that if she knocked three times on that tea pot Cookie would appear in her kitchen. Petunia was very happy about this, she missed her friend and their cooking at the Bee Hive.

Steven told them that he did not mind still beeing their contact between the Dursleys and the other world for as long as they wanted. They were very happpy about this because now that Vernon was gone they was not sure if Steven just wanted to be left alone from them. But he thought it was awsome to be helping Harry Potters relatives, so he did not mind doing the correspondance for them at all. So he and Dudley exchanged email adresses and Steven would just print out their words and send an owl, he also had a scanner at home so he could just scan Ax or Hestias`s words and send an email to Dudley. Petunia certainly did not want another owl living in the house, so she was very pleased with that arrangement.

Life at Privet Drive went by, and Petunia and Dudley slowly but surely adjusted their lives at no4 without Vernon. In his stead they got to rekindle their friendship a little better with their friends at the Bee Hive. Petunia frequently tapped her teapot sitting in the kitchen, Dudley shook his jar of honey and were free to do so througout the entire house without having to hide away from any parent. And Ax visited them every now and then when in company with Poppy, or Cookie.


End file.
